New Commission puts innovation and entrepreneurship to the fore

Innovation, entrepreneurship, climate action and the digital agenda are all buzzwords that appear for the first time in the job titles of Europe’s proposed new Commissioners, reflecting José Manuel Barroso’s policy priorities for his second term as Commission President.

This chimes with the EU2020 strategy, which, as Barroso spelt out last week, has three key themes: creating a competitive, connected and greener economy; generating value by basing growth on knowledge; and empowering people in inclusive societies.

Emphasising the central role that research and innovation will play in this agenda, Barosso named Europe’s first innovation commissioner, Ireland’s Máire Geoghegan-Quinn. A former career politician, Geoghegan-Quinn has spent the past ten years sequestered at the European Court of Auditors. Her full title will be Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, and as such she takes over an expanded portfolio from the current commissioner, Janez Potocnik.

Bringing research and innovation closer together is a very good move, according to Horst Soboll, former chair of the European Commission’s  European Research Advisory Board. “This must not just be a change in name though. It must be in substance too,” he said.

As for the appointment of Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, Soboll expressed satisfaction that it was someone who knows her way around the, “nuances of the European system.” The ability to communicate the directorate’s main projects and ideas to her colleagues is much more important than the need to be a scientist. She will have plenty of advisers for that, he added.

In particular, of course, the holder of the new post of EU Chief Scientific Adviser, whose name is yet to be announced.

The addition of innovation to the R&D portfolio immediately throws up one turf war: who will be responsible for the EU’s plans for a European Innovation Act, which aims to put in place general principles that create a coherent policy on innovation? Until now, DG Enterprise and Industry has for the most part taken the lead, for example by organising the public consultation, which closed on November 16.

While innovation has been added to the research portfolio, the Marie Curie programme has been lost to Education, where it will sit alongside the European Institute of Technology.

But it is DG Enterprise and Industry that emerges looking more streamlined. Innovation policy aside, the department has lost other units. Better regulation, which deals with reducing the administrative burden on business, has moved to the Secretariat-General, where it will be closer to Barroso’s sphere of influence, and the Trans-Atlantic Economic Council will move to DG Trade.

More significantly for industrial R&D, the pharmaceutical products and cosmetics units are to be transferred from DG Enterprise to the directorate for health and consumer affairs, a move that the pharmaceutical industry has resisted.

As a result, Italy’s Antonio Tajani will be inheriting a weaker DG Enterprise and Industry. There is some consolation perhaps in the new title, DG Industry and Entrepreneurship, though that also begs the logic of corralling innovation and entrepreneurship into separate portfolios.

The pharmaceutical switch received a mixed response. The European Public Health Alliance welcomed the move, with its Secretary General Monika Kosinska saying, “The Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner is now better equipped to lead a consistent and coherent approach to public health policy and more specifically to ensure protection of patients and safety of medicines throughout the European Union.”

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) greeted the news with more caution, keen to ensure that the business side of pharmaceuticals isn’t neglected. “The new Commissioner must recognise the industry’s dual roles of meeting the health needs of Europe’s patients and its significant contribution to Europe’s economic well-being via a significant positive trade balance, high-quality employment and substantial investment in European-based research,” Colin Mackay, EFPIA’s director of communications and partnerships, told Science|Business.

The industry’s fears that this directorate is not equipped to support the sector’s huge economic and competitive importance were perhaps confirmed by the decision to once again unite the health and consumer protection portfolios. They were split between two commissioners in 2007.

The move means the new health and consumer policy commissioner, Malta’s John Dalli, an accountant by profession, gains oversight of one of Europe’s most important regulators, the European Medicines Agency

In another snub to industry, Dalli will also take on the Biotechnology, Pesticides and Health unit from DG Environment, leaving him in charge of the policy morass concerning genetically modified organisms.

The environment directorate, which will be where Potocnik moves to, will lose climate-change related issues through the creation of a brand-new directorate for Climate Action to be led by Denmark’s Connie Hedegaard. As the woman who has been organising the upcoming UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen in her capacity as Denmark’s Climate and Energy Minister, Hedegaard is certainly someone with experience in this area.

Just as green issues are moving up the agenda, so is the digital world. The Commission says one of its priorities is delivering a single digital market, where for example consumers can benefit from competitive prices offered in other member states. But again the industry may be dismayed to see this portfolio, with its new moniker of Digital Agenda, go to Neelie Kroes, who as Competition Commissioner has pursued some of the leading companies in the sector in anti-trust cases.

However, the fact that Kroes was previously responsible for the powerful competition portfolio is “a strong sign that the Digital Agenda is high on the Barroso II agenda” said Janis Emmanouilidis, senior policy analyst at the European Policy Centre.

One role that isn’t clear, says Emmanouilidis, is, “Who is Mr or Mrs Lisbon?” In other words, who will be the person in charge of coordinating all the different strands of this post-Lisbon strategy? Perhaps Barroso himself plans to fill that role.

Still, “Barroso has divided the portfolios creatively, but logically. If you look at the cards in his hand, he played them well,” Emmanouilidis said.

The new portfolios and their proposed holders were announced on November 27. Before taking up their posts, all the Commissioners have to pass the hurdle of European Parliament hearings between January 11 and 19. The Parliament’s vote is scheduled for January 26. The new Commission’s term runs until 31 October 2014.