What does the new European Parliament mean for research?

Maria da Graça Carvalho, MEP

Maria da Graça Carvalho is one of the many new members of the Industry, Research and Energy committee, or ITRE as it is known. But while she may be new to the Parliament, Carvalho is not new to Brussels, having spent the three years until her election in June this year advising European Commission President José Manuel Barroso in the areas of science, higher education, innovation, research policy, energy, environment and climate change.

The two had worked together before that, when Barroso was Prime Minister and she was Minister for Science, Innovation and Higher Education in the Portuguese government. Carvalho is once again representing her country, as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) belonging to the centre-right European People’s Party, the largest group in the Parliament.

As to why she decided to switch from the Commission to the Parliament, Graça Carvalho says, “In the Commission, you are bound to the Commission position. As an MEP, there is more individual work, less collective work, you can defend your own causes.”

Securing a place on ITRE was important to her. “I fought a lot for it,” Carvalho said in an interview with Science|Business. “It was the committee for me – because I have 30 years of research experience.” Most of her research has been in energy and climate change, and her PhD from Imperial College London was in the field of energy-intensive industries.

Carvalho’s political projects are directly connected with her research. One cause she intends to push as a member of ITRE is innovation. “Innovation will be one of my crusades,” she said. “Our industry has to change and our industry has to be based on innovation and knowledge.”

As the committee with responsibility for the EU's industrial policy and the application of new technologies, the main priority for ITRE has to be “a rethink” of industrial strategy to ensure growth and jobs. Clean technologies to help combat climate change, innovative ideas in the energy sector and a need for more R&D in energy-intensive industries are all key, Carvalho said.

And as a member of the African, Caribbean, Pacific-EU (ACP-EU) Joint Parliamentary Assembly, another cause she will focus on is how energy management and planning can help alleviate poverty in these countries.

Carvalho and Copenhagen

Carvalho will be a part of the European Parliament delegation at the United Nations Climate Change conference, starting in Copenhagen on Monday. But she has mixed views on how much progress to expect from the meeting.

“We won’t come out with a replacement for Kyoto,” Carvalho said. “The EU has energy and climate change packages, but we are the only ones.” In her opinion, Europe is the only one to have done, “all its homework,” for example, starting the EU’s Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading System in 2005.

Success in Copenhagen, in Carvalho’s opinion, would be reaching a “political pact” on the principles of how to reduce emissions by industrialised countries and how this responsibility should be divided between these nations. Developing countries such as China and India need to cut their emissions by 15-20 per cent compared with a “business as usual” scenario, she said. Meanwhile, the least developed countries should make efforts to apply clean technologies, for which they need financing.