Brussels briefing
Máire Geoghegan-Quinn took a swipe at member states when she reviewed their spending on research and development — her bailiwick in the European Commission.
She noted that EU-based firms increased their spending on R&D by 8.9% last year but this did little to increase combined public and private research spend and at just 2.03% of GDP it is now unlikely to reach the 3% target by 2020 that member states have all committed to.
The same member states want to cut the EU’s proposed budget for the next seven-year term and are targeting the €80bn proposed for research, plus money for Erasmus funding for students abroad and energy, transport and IT across borders.
“We are at risk of a dangerous stagnation in terms of public funding of research,” she warned.
Consulting your doctor will be a matter of switching on your internet in the near future. The eHealth action plan announced by the European Commission promises to cut waiting times and error rates.
It should give patients access to their health records, allow doctors to issue electronic prescriptions and allow people to be monitored by their medical professionals.
It’s the next step, with millions having downloaded smartphone apps to keep track of their health, and could allow people to consult specialists in another country from home.
Putting People First could cost hundreds of millions of euro in EU funding, Labour MEPs have warned, referring to Environment Minister Phil Hogan’s plans to dismantle Leader local development companies.
It’s used as an example of best practice by the EU, but subsuming it into the local authority structure as the minister is threatening could end all that.
MEPs Phil Prendergast and Nessa Childers, pictured, say the alternatives being put forward by the man tipped to be Ireland’s next commissioner only pay lip- service to the organisations concerned, and are certainly not putting people first.
Second-hand car salesmen have traditionally been seen as unreliable, and perhaps it is not too surprising that bankers are now being seen in the same light.
Markets for investment products, mortgages and real estate services are also at rock bottom when it comes to how they are viewed by consumers, especially in Ireland.
Confused and misled is how many consumers feel when trying to access these services, according to the EU’s consumer scoreboard — a comparison of goods and services in EU countries.
Employers are currently looking to fill 2m vacancies around the EU, and finding it hard to do so despite record unemployment in some countries.
The commission launched a website with information on skills needs, supply, and mismatches and plans to direct jobseekers to the most demanded occupations.
And while Ireland’s unemployment is not the highest in the EU, a survey by the commission found the number who found jobs is the second lowest (after Romania), having more than halved between 2007 and last year.
Irish employers cannot find enough qualified software developers, cloud computing and game development specialists, engineers especially in chemical, food, and hi-tech quality control, financial compliance experts, specialist nurses, and radiographers.
It’s taken more than 30 years, but the EU is very close to agreeing to an EU-wide patent that will cut costs for those patenting inventions.
It aims to cut up to 80% off current costs, as a patent has to be taken out in each of the 27 member states, which also means translating it into every language. It also means having to go to court in each country if there are infringements of patent. So the answer has mostly been to patent in the US for a fraction of the cost.
It will still cost around €4,000 — three times more than in the US — but will be a major saving on the huge sums of money and time involved up until now.
Favourable terms for the Greeks; Spaniards getting ESM money to recapitalise their banks — and Ireland, which “took one for the team,” is still left in an uncertain and unsustainable situation, according to MEP Marian Harkin.
She was upset by a German newspaper accusing Ireland of jealousy over the Greeks getting lower interest rates and longer repayment time for their bailout. While the Government has not asked for the same deal — it wants to wait until next year — the Independent MEP suggests the newspaper might be tempted to use the phrase “green with envy”.
Ireland’s failure to participate in a UN convention against child prostitution, child pornography, and sale of children is listed by Russia in its report on EU failures on human rights.
Russia is increasingly seen as an autocratic country, firmly under the soviet-style control of its head of state, and is insisting foreign-funded human rights bodies must list themselves as “foreign agents”.
It bristles when such allegations are made and has hit back at the EU accusing them of human rights violations in a report on their Foreign Affairs website.
The failures it lists include secret CIA jails in Poland, Romania, and Lithuania, and prejudice against minorities.
Moscow has offered to help the EU improve things through a “constructive dialogue of equals”.
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