foreign with us today that's a good question because he will speak after me actually and I'm not sure if I can see her I don't see her either and then it will be washing okay so then we change the order flexible of course okay so maybe we can start slowly because we already started to speak so Martha I guess you can start okay so hello good morning everybody I think it's just one minute after 1 30 so I think we can start our event uh event on strategic Technologies for European platform and the event takes one and one and actually and 15 minutes and first of all I would like to thank you all of your food join uh today to our webinar my name is Martha crota and I represent a Polish national Center for research and development office in Brussels and before we start I have few housekeeping announcements the event will be recorded and streamed on YouTube and I hope all of you agrees and also after two presentations today we'll have q a session and I really encourage all of you to ask questions via chat and we'll try to answer at least some of them and also we have a habit that all organizers say hello in their their national languages so I will switch into the Polish language is foreign now I will switch into the English language and I would like to give the floor to Maya she will say a few words in her national language why a floor is yours thank you hello everybody uh welcome also on behalf of Slovenian business and research Association is so back to English just thank you so much everybody again for joining us and thank you for all my colleagues here in Brussels based offices for another great event and now we give the world to the world to alsoya hello good morning good afternoon my name is I hope you find this even the informative and useful for your future plans and then I give the floor to Agata thank you so much Russia and good afternoon everybody I'm another Hungarian co-organizer representing the national research development and Innovation office of Hungary here in Brussels sitting at the corn rep uh yes so thank you everybody I will join you back as the moderator of the Q a session but now I give the floor to tadas who is the virtual host of the event thank you very much and good afternoon welcome everyone my name is Tada stumenas and I'm the head of Lithuanian r d i liaison office in Brussels and now I would like to switch to my mother Tong and great living and participants strategy new technology platformer is foreign due I would like to introduce our today's speakers and according to the agenda we're supposed to have only one speaker but actually we're going to have two so it's a big pleasure for us to have David Lombardo Deputy head of unit from Digi budget and later on his colleague Angelo Villa Deputy head of unit from pgr2d I will also talk about the step so as I recall David you will be the one who is going to start right yes that's right thank you very much thank you good afternoon to all and thank you for the invitation um if you mentioned uh my name is David Lombardo I am the deputy head of the newly established task force for the implementation of the step initiative this task force indeed sits in Digi budget which is my uh my directorate general of origin um I am glad to be here because a key role of the task force that SSA has just been launched is indeed to uh to interact with the project promoters to help them identify the best sources of funding in the landscape of the EU budget for this project that are in the in this critical and strategic sectors which we will discuss I also will the task force will also help the member states and implementing authorities uh that Carry Out programs in shared management to uh to navigate through the regulatory landscape and do the best of this initiative um so I will start the presentation I don't know if I have control of it uh or if I okay so someone else is helping I have control of it okay fantastic tell us okay okay all right so um just for uh by the way of introduction of this initiative and uh consequently of the new task force you might have heard a few days ago the president of the European commission Ursula of underlying uh singling out the step initiative as a key part of the eu's response to the National Economic and National Security imperative to preserve a European Edge on critical and emerging Technologies um so the idea at the beginning of time or like late last year was to establish a a sovereignty fund that would help Advance the European content in in a strategically critical Technologies however uh upon reflection it has been decided to uh to propose the step initiative which uh has the characteristic of relying on existing funding instruments existing EU programs because this is uh going to make it uh much easier and faster to to provide the support that we want to provide it would have taken by experience too long to establish a completely new fund so the step uh which again is an acronym that says for strategic Technologies for Europe platform as I say here boosts leverages and steers the existing programs EU program several of them to develop to deploy support to a strategic and critical projects in the area of deep and digital Technologies which I think is what is the main topic of today with uh also with my colleague Angelo but also the step will support clean Technologies and biotechnologies and here I have just collected a few examples to give an idea of what this Technologies are but I would like to stress that in the proposal these are presented precisely as examples there is no intention to present at this stage an exhaustive list of technologies that can be supported but the idea is that the technologies will have to be disruptive or critical uh from including from us from a study autonomy perspective for them to qualify for support from this new initiative yes and as far as the digital uh sectors or the digital Technologies are concerned here I have listed a microelectronics Quantum cloud and Edge computing artificial intelligence and cyber security as well as Robotics and 5G and higher uh other advanced form of connectivity but to say this is not an exhaustive list next slide try this please so as I mentioned earlier the step initiative or the step proposal I should say which is by the way currently being negotiated if you wish discussed and negotiated between the council and the Parliament the EU Parliament European Parliament has trained three main planks three main components it aspires at focusing the existing it proposes the reinforcement the budgetary reinforcement of a few of them and also it creates some tools to develop and exploit synergies across these programs so when it comes to focusing what we mean is that the proposal foresee is that for several instruments like the equation policy the rrf digital Europe and new for health uh in the basic regulations of these programs uh additional objectives and or windows are being added to Cutter specifically to these uh sectors that I mentioned earlier um in terms of targeted reinforcement the proposals are requests additional resources for invest EU for the Innovation fund for the European investment you know for the European Innovation Council and for the defense fund for European Defense fund and I will discuss this a bit later and I now would like to describe the the the synergies which is really the the core work of my task force so um first of all we will develop a so-called sovereignty portal so we Aspire at creating a web-based platform Where We Gather and centralize all the information about calls and procurements from EU funds not only from the fans or the programs that EU the commission directly manages because this is already available but also for the programs that we Implement through are implementing Partners in particular the member states when it comes to cohesion programs and and recovery and resilience facility so uh so this will be a first uh task that we have then another form of synergy is uh in the form of a sovereignty seal so the legislation foresees that uh the projects which apply to uh directly managed program by the commission and which are assessed as uh passing some minimum uh quality uh thresholds um receive a sovereignty uh seal which is a bit like a label or a stamp uh that would then uh will make it easier for these projects to receive uh complementary or funding from other uh EU programs in particular uh the idea is from uh the programs that are managed uh by the member states and other uh implementing partners and we can discuss uh if there isn't just how this might work then there is this one stop shop which is indeed the task force that I discussed was set up in July the idea would be to support both the project from others on one side as I mentioned but also uh the implementing patterns and the national authorities on the other and finally we are also uh looking at um adjusting the state aid framework for example to uh to allow for a bit of a higher uh Aid content for uh for projects which are step related and that take place or are implemented in um assisted regions um next slide tell us please yeah this is the slide about the the reinforcement the budgetary reinforcements which The Proposal requests so uh in total The Proposal uh six about 10 billion of additional funding which are split across different programs uh 3 billion for invest EU to uh to an 2.6 for the European Innovation Council which Angela will talk about 5 billion for the Innovation fund and one and a half billion for European Defense fund um these uh top-ups as we call them are meant to uh then uh support a much bigger amount of Investments through the leverage effect for example uh the invest you uh the EU additional money would back a bigger guarantee and the guarantee in itself will then back uh 10 times as much investment typically these are the typical estimates that we see in in the past implementation of the invest you um The Proposal importantly also introduces some incentives for member states to um devote more of their of their resources to step sectors both in the cohesion policy and in the rrf so for example with respect to the commission the idea is that the Sovereign TCL as I mentioned would allow member states to directly fund these projects that have been awarded the label and also there is it foreseen that for Step 11 Pro projects the member states would get a higher pre-financing to the tune of 30 percent and also possibly full 100 co-financing uh by the EU budget and for the rrf the idea is that uh we are the proposal would allow for a higher share of rrf funds to be uh implemented through the investeu which would then of course allow the member states to take advantage of the of the multiplying factor of the investor um next slide yeah this is I see that this is the part of the presentation that Angelo would do so I uh evangelo is with us yes I see him I will give the floor to him to complete the presentation thank you thank you David and thanks taras for organizing once more good afternoon everybody I want to explain now a little bit from the the DJ RTD side what that step proposal means for Horizon Europe in particular because I think for your community one of the main instruments here of interest is indeed the European Innovation Council I am the deputy of unit to this new European Innovation council at djrtd which exists only since May so we're still very very much in the baby phase of this unit but the EIC is not and I want to first put into context of what you know about the EIC uh what David has just explained so if a Top-Up to the EIC is coming from step what does that mean so now you know that the EIC consists of a Pathfinder a transition pillar and then the accelerator when we talk about step we're talking about the top up and actually an old compartment I'll come back to that in the EIC fund which is the EIC accelerator so we are talking about Investments not about grants but we're talking about investments into scaling up companies next slide please you also know that there is a budget breakdown which David has already referred to know where the money should come from the 2.63 for for the EIC and we can come back to that set of particular interest to you next slide what are we trying to do and why in the EIC you you probably know all of you that we we currently have the possibility under the accelerator to provide grounds combined with Equity so this is called the Blended Finance or Equity only Investments and our investment component can go up to 15 million euro this is for any breakthrough companies which complies with the work program priorities can be any breakthrough technology or any breakthrough Innovation which has been identified in in a work program and um the the new compartment would now allow us to have so-called follow-on Investments not only to companies which come from the EIC brand so which I've successfully gone through the Pathfinder in in the transition pillar but to to any company so any company which complies with the requirements of the step LED criteria which would underlie this new compartment could gain Finance from here we're talking about Equity only I said there is no combination of Grants needed and this is for the EIC the creation of a sovereignty seal David has already explained this is um complementary so to say and we would hope that member states pick this up a lot you you play a role in this because I um happened to hear that the Seal of Excellence which is basically the system on the horizon which you're also familiar with um the Seal of Excellence is something which is rather successful in some member states and mentioned earlier already this day Spain that is apparently financing all seals of accidents so it makes active use of what David was explaining that there's a screening already done and there's kind of a quality label to a specific type of project and member states can and in some cases do Finance this very very largely but not all of them member states there are others who don't make use of that at all and it's up to you to judge with your member state representatives in how far that is actually Justified there might sometimes be good reasons to do so in other cases maybe it is just the the lack of awareness about this possibility or just some some other reason which is maybe void of a real rni logic behind it next slide please so we are going to support the equity only the range here would be that these are investments which can go up to 50 million to non-bankable companies smes and then there is a slight bias at the stage here that we would also want to allow small mid caps in order not to kill certain companies not just because they have successfully grown in the meantime you know why they're going through through our investment pipeline and this is a different size and when I say 50 million we're talking about what the EIC would provide as we say anchor investment basically in the process because as you know all the Investments which we Undertake from the EIC fund they they are kind of anchor Investments this is not the objective the the amount which comes out here is not the the final objective this is the start of a syndication with private financers private Equity Funds in an in an investment round which usually goes much much higher so here it could be I don't know 100 million 150 200 million we we had financing rounds under the current conditions which went in the range of 100 million all together with our maximum investment of 15 million that depends obviously very much on the company its management team not only its technology but it's a maturity for the markets how interesting it is for for private investors so why are we proposing this year one could say um well 50 million is a lot and if the financing around goes to 100 million that's it well the the point is that we we still do lose companies a lot to other parts of the world where the pockets are are deeper and when we talk about strategically important Technologies you can just imagine we nurture a company through any tool maybe it could come off the structural funds sometimes out of the Innovation fund you you name it but we we have a European company which comes to the rounds of Investments of like a hundred million will it stop there no obviously not Google didn't neither did Skype none of these companies stops there they have another investment run afterwards before growing into a really mature company and these are sizes which we cannot cope with under the current SME and this is the feedback I come to back to that in a minute this is the feedback which companies give to us so in order to avoid that the companies which we successfully nurtured even up to the level of having a first large investment round would then be forced to go into another um part of the world and potentially even in Parts which might be very problematic for us thinking about strategic Technologies must not always be the US it can well be China or other parts of the world we we don't want to allow this we don't want to allow us not the right word we don't want to force companies to do this this would be exactly the opposite of what we want to achieve in terms of technological sovereignty then the fund Investments that you you know the story is complementary to invest EU because some people might ask and I've seen that David has explained that there's quite some money going into invest EU as well and invest EU does not only have guaranteed products they also have a venture capital um fillier as you know but that functions very differently those are investments of much smaller size into the companies because the the amounts which come from the eif in most of the cases through invest EU they go into funds did not go into companies so in a fund which has an investment strategy for I don't know you name it five ten years and has a certain thematic priority so this should continue to be possible and it's also useful to never strengthen that with step but it's a different system this is not about these large financing rounds we're talking about where the EIC is indeed and Remains the unique instrument which the EU has created in order to make sure that those Innovations mature and then stay in in Europe next slide please so this is what I refer to from the EIC figures and then also from our market analysis it is very clear that the companies in Europe they they they continue like those which successfully grow obviously if they don't they will never be in need of financing around which goes beyond 100 million but we have those companies and those are the ones Everybody is watching so again when we have strategic Technologies these are precisely the companies we want to have here they make a real difference not only in terms of economic development for Europe but also in terms of strategic orientations strategic autonomy Capital cost of those companies at that curve or at that level of the curve of growth are very very high and we are just not in the same league yet we're getting much better we're getting really much better and the EIC is by now the the largest Equity investor in that in that area and that segment or off the market but um we're not the only ones at least I don't want to say it's only the EIC but also some member State activities and we were getting slowly better but we're still lagging behind certainly the US and then also there are quite some potent funds in other parts of the world which can be even more problematic than the US so yeah I think the rest I said next slide please the the EIC is facing an over subscription already now here you see some some figures which um in my opinion they uh forcefully make the point which I was trying to make that this money is is well invested the success rate of our instrument is in the range of what uh one one would expect for Venture Capital Investments it is not that everybody goes through obviously not but it's also not impossible to um to to obtain our support the rest I said last slide I think this is already the thank you so let me wrap up again we we have step as a Top-Up a star video set it would allow larger financing rounds into strategically particularly important Technologies which these are not already said this is still to be decided in in more detail but um the use of budget in the EIC is a way to pursue those this strategic autonomy through strategic Technologies now because our instrument as you know I mean we have a pretty immediate effect once the financing round is out there the the company gets the money now we're accelerating our investment process as well and because there have been some uh some hiccups which you're well aware of but um we are accelerating that process and once the money goes into the market it has an immediate effect you know the company can use it and it can grow you can basically watch it grow which is very different from other EU support instruments including insight and Horizon Europe thanks a lot for so much and looking forward to the discussion thank you very much thank you for both of you and now I would like to give the floor to my colleague agota who is going actually to manage now q a part so agota we are in your hands now thank you stand up to now I have a very easy task because we only received one question from the phone or there is a second one but first then let's let me read the out loud the first question that arrived so what is the rationer behind the proposed budget cut of pillar 2 although I saw that this slide was quickly turned on uh so that is this 800 million euro to the benefit of the EIC so the main question is that would the step have a distinct focus on doer use Technologies or what is the reason why we should really change the let's say a location of funds thanks I I don't know who will respond to which question but I let this for you to decide when I start with the pillar 2 you can maybe add on if there's anything on Dual use now you want to still share with us um this this argument or pieces this is everywhere and then this is also one of the difficulties maybe we have because pillar 2 and the community behind projects in pillar 2 understandably still remembers very well that there were other cases not very far from not in a very firm far history where um the pillar 2 had given money to other types of activities and it was shifted around so what's the rationale here I alluded to it already it's it's good that you give me the opportunity to explain this because we now we we often hear that question and we are kind of feeling that we haven't thought this through or we are like kind of cannibalizing between the the pillars and no uh I uh I'm only in this unit actually where I am now since three months I've worked until a two Industrial Technologies before so I know a little bit what I'm talking about but you judge so pillar two finances Technologies which address societal challenges across all clusters in particular the industry cluster where I was working on but in our clusters it's a societal challenges now we want to finance strategically important Technologies there's not a big difference the the point is that what we're trying now with step is that more accentuated even though that list you saw of Technologies is really wide you'll struggle to find the technology where you say this is fine and so to be financed under pillar too and you would already see it excluded from watabi that presented so but just to make that point this is an accentuation of Technologies which pillar 2 would Finance anyway in our interpretation accentuated in the sense that there will be a narrower Focus strategically important will have to be defined in some way that it does not address all the Technologies from from pillar 2.
and then there's the sense of urgency which David refer to and which the president has referred to in a state of the union speech we're talking about strategically important Technologies and we're living in a world right now you do a use question that also shows us very much we're living in a different world so if we want to have an a rather immediate or at least short-term effect of investments into research and innovation to create and to nurture and develop strategically important Technologies we got to choose which instrument is the best to do this in these next two three years step is to step is study the steps it's a it can be a sovereignty fund under the next mff I don't know I don't have a crystal ball it can be a strategically new orientation of fp10 in which pillar 2 might have an own cluster or you name it I don't know the structures about strategically important Technologies that's when the programming period is over so four years from from now but what until then if we just leave everything as it is pillar 2 is not very good in producing technology bringing Technologies to the market quickly there are lots of projects including the Partnerships which as you know better than I do they go up to tl7 normally and then we'll have to see what happens some areas it's easier because the big companies drive it forward and it's a clean steel or whatever in other areas it's much less obvious so if we want to have that impact the EIC is in our interpretation the best tool where we can put it it's the very similar type of Technologies just in an accentuated way but it's much more the direct and it probably has a larger leverage effect but that no I don't even want to go into but this is the rationale so I'm not thinking that we're cannibalizing between pillars at all thank you great and maybe then about to our use yes um thank you not just to say that um you know the Strategic uh element this critical aspect from the Strategic autonomy perspective is indeed the key uh a key component of this initiative is a key driver of this initiative so um I think we cannot say that that uh this will be a you know this the the step would only focus on on the values every uh project will be assessed on its own uh basis on its own merits uh but it's indeed uh the projects will have to have this uh critical element of uh for example helping us to uh win off from dangerous dependencies uh in in this critical sector so I guess I don't have uh an answer besides saying that uh the analysis will be on a Case by case basis but we need to remember where the step initiative uh comes from what are the goals that it tries to achieve which have um which have a lot to do with uh supporting or enhancing our strategic autonomy in this critical sector thank you so much I would have a relevant comment because I could see on the slide that also in the defense fund you would mainly or only finance research related activities so is it really focusing only on research these additional funds or or it's just also focusing at no not at all only research I mean w can compliment but you saw the instruments The Innovation fund that's very highly I mean the defense fun story so because on the slide under the defense fund it was added in the next column that it's meant for research but maybe it's just because we are talking about research so it's also a possibility or it's it's exclusively research only the defense fund I mean I mean the the what we are trying to get is uh the development of new emerging critical Technologies so if you are trying to uh if you want to fund for example this installment of solar panels right there is not this is not step I mean the solar panel exists right uh and we know what they are and of course we we are dependent on those but the installment of solar panels is not something that we do with step we have other programs here what step is trying to do is trying to help companies which have a lot of uh which have nice new ideas potentially disruptive but that they are so uncertain and so risky that in fact uh typically they don't get off the ground uh and so we want to increase the our capacity to to to develop this uh disrupt disruptive new emerging Technologies uh in-house in in the EU so uh it doesn't mean that we don't do the rest right with the budget but this specific initiative is uh for uh the development of Technologies if you wish right uh so the uh some ideas that have the potential to have very big implications down the line but that because of their of their status they uh run the risk of just dying before even being born so we would like to uh or as as Angelo said earlier they might have to go somewhere else to see the light of day we don't want to do that we want to be able to we want to take more if you wish we want to take more risks with this with this technologies that because then we would like to have them being European rather than having uh to depend on these new technologies in critical sectors from potentially uh friendly or unfriendly allies or Partners I should say there was actually a very concrete question coming from a company who would like to scale up their bus production but these are very unique buses they say but then such kind of a scale up of production could this be a good possible candidate for for let's say an Equity Fund from the EU understand for this is rather for new technologies so if a technology is not new anymore then scaling up is not already meant to understand well not from the EIC so much is sure and the IC is not the instrument for that it's for breakthrough scaling a breakthrough Innovation but in in the making and so not natural produce but or invest EU invest EU is very broad so no I don't know in which pillars of investing you this top up which Darby there was presenting they will then eventually be used uh the the risk Finance philia of invest EU is just one small element of it there are guarantee instruments Windows under investor you go across the whole Market they go from infrastructure to including production I'm pretty sure not the research and Innovation window but the the other windows so this is as much as I can say yeah I mean typically uh some of these companies uh may very well be capable of of uh of racing also private normal funding yeah it doesn't have to be uh you know from Europe from the description that I've seen in the chat this seems to be a quite established company that might very well have a lot of um you know they might be able to make a business case for for even for private funding but uh I don't I wouldn't want to uh give an answer yes or no uh certainly for two reasons first because uh indeed uh the the specific uh scope of the of the step initiative is perhaps the most hotly debated uh of the of the elements of The Proposal as I said you know the proposal is still being in a sense negotiated and potentially changed uh by the council in the parliament so we need to see what in the end is that it is adopted and the second reason is that even if we had the current proposal as if it was approved it would be not up to uh to me in particular to the task force that I represent to actually uh determine the eligibility but we would be uh reverting you know we'll have to see whether the in the in the individual programs that uh that the fund that the EU budget uh proposes whether they would be eligible and as Angelo said uh one thing that we will do is we will give advice on what is the most appropriate tool so that if that you don't go up the the wrong tree so to say that you make your either you focus your uh application to in the correct uh in the most appropriate calls that's something that we will do and we will be happy to do uh as part of our support to to project uh promoters once the the initiative is in fact uh alive goes live hopefully uh even the beginning of the next year I'm sure this will be very useful because always the case with new tools that we are a bit lost at the beginning so then I'm afraid that you will not have a very clear answer for the next question about when submitting the step application are the details of the application already known because you will even just that not even the no I do yes I have an answer in the sense that in the first in the first instance there is no such a thing as a step application but there is an application to the individual program uh we will do a first assessment of the course which are already outstanding to see which ones are relevant for step because as I mentioned earlier one of the tasks of my one of the goal of my task force is to centralize all the information about the the useful calls or the relevant calls so uh we will look at the existing goals we may uh try to identify a more more like like some elements in the application form for the future calls that are relevant to step but for the time being the application depends on which which instrument you are trying to tap uh and so there is not such a thing as a step application and we would need to the application will need to be following the the the the guidelines and the requirements of the individual fund which will be pursued so this will just be your next step if you need an additional type of core or you will use the current instruments in uh how they are at the moment just in that additional budget so this this is uh one question one question will be indeed whether the different programs will organize themselves in a way that they have a very step specific calls or whether whether indeed they would want to have uh potentially uh broader calls in which the step projects can then apply so that I I don't know it will need to be discussed I guess it depends a bit also on the on the final uh shape of the scope of the step that will be decided but uh in any case um I don't think we will get to a situation where the same call and will I mean the same template will uh will be useful or will be requested for all the different instruments because they are different they are different they they work differently they are assessed differently but certainly one thing that we want to have is what this I mentioned with the CL that for example there's some serious simplification could come about when you if you apply for one one program and and and and get this label then uh what we would like to see is that in the next application uh several several processes or several uh steps will be already kind of automatically uh completed so to speak so there could be skipped to to be to to be clear thank you then there is a very short question about the focus so will it be R and I focused or commercialization Focus or both in a way yeah I responded to that in the chat already I quoted it both until the instruments and stuff is that the instruments really cover uh very different parts of the Innovation pipeline if you want so both then we could see that in a way the AI data and Robotics partnership offered their help so they would gladly co-create Innovative work program which is uh relevant to their field so on the digital part that there was also a question integrated so that uh is there was ambition to also set strategic orientations for something like accelerating AI deployment in Europe so would that be part of this digital pillar I think there's also two elements of um response I would give to to that Philip we first of all the the EIC already now is financing breakthrough Innovation and AI or generative AI is is part of that we have the work program 24 coming up this is just in one illustration there have been other work programs where AI I think has already been covered but maybe since it's evolving so quickly generative AI operating next year is going to be the first time we'll have a challenge most probably um on generative Ai and its use in in all its development in Europe that said as you know the work program is not adopted yet this is um we're not very far from there so that's why I'm mentioning it it's um I think very likely that we would have such a challenge under the accelerator um but let's see so yes it's it's covered so now the EIC is for the time being about any breakthrough Innovation so what will happen with step where as I said it's an accentuated uh way of like the strategically most important Technologies generate AI I can see it in there but that's a crystal ball let's wait until negotiations are over I started to set it's very hard to foresee what the real uh scope will be in the end this is the main interest always of the negotiators so let's see and then about whether there is any interaction possibilities with um the the partnership I know the partnership well obviously and I'm happy that that we have it um your your partnership should normally already be in contact with the AI relevant program manager under the EIC I'm still too fresh to remember all the names by heart right now but we have a program manager I'm dealing with them artificial intelligence and um if that hasn't been the case then you should reach out or make sure that there's a mutual reaching out to each other this is something which is usually happening the PMS reach out to the Partnerships in their remit and vice versa I might just add something on this because I'm sitting in the era forum and uh there we have a new initiative that we might set up some guidelines that would also make it in a way facilitate the use of AI and especially generative AI so this is also coming of course this is not a bad step something relevant uh I think also in regulatory terms if I may say that I think without being an expert but I think Europe is pretty much at the Forefront of these regulatory developments in regards AI it's so quick that obviously policy makers can't can hardly catch up with that pace but I think we're we're pretty much Advanced no so you guys would obviously know much better but there's nothing right now in Step which would provide guidelines and it's more the processes you already know I can three reallocation so there is a concrete question if you can elaborate it a bit more which clusters will be affected and in what percentage and if it's not defined yet then when we have more information about this and no I don't think that there's any decision yet about that what I can tell you but I want to emphasize again what I said before I'm going to take the dramatism a bit out of it now this is one of the situations where I claim to know a bit what I'm talking about and um yeah you know so it's the same Technologies in the end but um no I don't know for the specific clusters and I have really no idea so I don't want to speculate about it but um the um uh what concerns the impact on the work programs because we're talking about a few years now you know we're talking about the remaining years and the Horizon so in 2024 there is going to be virtually no impact so anybody having projects there I understand the nervousness of people virtually no impact and then there's a very gradual but minimal impact over the remaining years of the program the amount is not so massive anyway but this is what I can say next year basically nothing and then gradually a little bit thank you great and there was something about TRS so are you then saying that only projects of TRL seven to nine will be funded yeah that depends a bit which instrument again so investor you has an rni window so that is um usually I don't know it includes seven to nine but it's probably not limited to that but under the EIC um there was already a response by Pim here in the chat which I have liked as well the esa accelerator as I said is this these are mature companies which actually go to the market and search for a second round of equity Investments so that Tri level is pretty high so yeah seven to nine certainly thank you I think uh now a new question is just popping up so when can we expect a decision on the step program what are the chances that it gets approved by the council and the member states and maybe David already said that if we are optimistic it will happen by the beginning of next year but you might buy some more concrete ideas okay I what I can say is that uh the negotiations in the Parliament and the council have taken two tracks there is one aspect that has to do with the legislative elements let's say the technical aspects of The Proposal which have to do for example with the flexibilization of the use of the cohesion funds or the rrf or for example the expansion of the the the extension of the eligibility to larger firms in in some in some cohesion programs this is been discussed in this is proceeding uh relatively uh fast in the council and in the parliament and then there is the other negotiation part which is the budgetary implications which have basically which have taken a different track because they are part of the discussions on The Wider review of the of the mff no of the multi-year financial framework and the on uh on so so on in terms of the amounts of the top-ups uh these additions to the programs those will they will be discussed as a package together with the other requests that have been made for example for migration or for the for Ukraine for the support to Ukraine and this will ultimately be decided by the the heads of state um and the and it seems like the calendar might be such that they might decide uh still perhaps in November uh so as I as you mentioned I got a uh it is uh possible that indeed by the end of the year we have uh all the decisions falling and the adoptions falling into place I do want to stress that uh in a sense uh the fact that we have established the task force for step in July before all of these decisions are taken uh is uh it's a it's a signal it's a sign that uh in the commission we do think that there is a need to uh to ensure that these programs work better together regardless of whether they are increased or they are expanded but we we feel that there is scope to uh provide a more effective support to to the companies to the to the project promoters in the EU and so we uh we intend to uh to work hard to that end uh pretty much almost independently of what gets uh decided so we will still try to coordinate the programs better we will try to see whether there are synergies to be to be caught or whether we are leaving some gaps in which our companies uh fall uh without us noticing and so in that respect uh this kind of conversations that we are having and the other ones have been proposed in the chat uh we are open uh we are this is our part of our job is to identify with the help of the beneficiaries that sounds excellent yes ways to to do better with what we have um we would like to have more and hopefully they will they will give us more because these are important uh issues but regardless of whether we get more we need to find a way to do better and this is very important also from like longer term perspective because for example we need to ask ourselves the questions are these formats for the call too different from one another I mean that's a question right maybe we cannot do anything about it right now but if we come to that conclusion we need to take note and we need to have that insight into the into the cooking stage when we designed the next nff right so there is a lot of work that we need to do which is independent of the of the outcome of the negotiations although of course we are a lot we are you know defending our proposal uh very hard and we invite those that have a say or those they have a way of getting their voice heard to also uh support it so that we can have this uh this additional resources that as Angelo explained we clearly uh could deploy a fairly fairly quickly given the pent-up demand that our instruments are facing right now I think you more or less even responded to the next question about the future because uh you are definitely working on the future already now and these synergies might really end up being used in the next mff planning but maybe you have already an idea what the future might be so be that we just continue this step process or some of you mentioned that one of you mentioned that we might rather have a completely separate sovereignty fund but I suppose this will come up from this whole process at the end I think uh advertise you is also Angelo said there is no Crystal Ball but I can say and also if I just look at the again at the speech of the president that I quoted at the beginning of the presentation everything uh suggests that the the direction of travel is towards a world where these kind of concerns are more and more pressing and more and more important so um everything would suggest that uh when we when the when the time comes let's say towards 2025 where the new uh the next mff will begin to take shape uh the Strategic autonomy uh and uh and and ensuring that we can pursue our goals in a reliable manner no depending on ourselves mostly will be uh a key priority everyone say a top priority and so therefore it's quite likely that uh both the task force has been set up but also this step kind of focus will become more structural uh element of the landscape of the e-budget what does this mean in practice there will be a fund or no will we have the same instruments or no that we cannot tell in fact that is part of the of the learning that we need to do the next couple of years where the thinking and the learning so so I would say we don't know the shape or the form but I think we can reasonably expect that uh this emphasis on on this kind of Technology side on the on the importance to be to be autonomous is here to stay for the foreseeable future then I saw briefly a question about the the geographical distribution yes we are a widening organization I think that's a good question indeed um you know uh the step also will will uh rely on for example on the cohesion funds on the rrf uh and uh indeed part of the purpose of the step is precisely to ensure that we can still keep a Level Playing Field you know even though we have for good reasons uh introduce this temporary state aid framework where arguably uh the member states that have more deeper pockets are in a more favorable situation so precisely the point of using the EU budget to support this certificate sector is to give an opportunity to all countries in a kind of a balanced way to develop these Technologies and from that perspective a lot of care has been taken in developing The Proposal that we are discussing uh to to achieve both to increase the support for the sectors but maintain respect respecting the the goals for example of the Coalition programs so for example even where it has been proposed to open up the cohesion programs to larger companies it has been done so only in in some countries which have which are relatively less uh developed less Advanced precisely to try to make a balancing act so I think the answer to the question is that there are mechanisms and research to ensure that uh the Level Playing Field in the EU single Market is maintained across the different levels of economic development of the different regions in the EU thank you so much maybe just one very last question which is very technical and apparently we have some really knowledgeable participants and I cannot even read it out loud but the main question is about deadlines so if the deadline of all these step relevant programs will be prolonged in order to be able to finish I suppose the the projects that would start under step but I don't know maybe you know more about this regulation so I think one thing I don't know I haven't been able to read the whole question well yes but I think one thing that I do know is that the proposal MB suggests the extending the deadline uh for the cohesion programs uh by uh from the past question programs by one year because the argument is that we are inviting uh the member states to uh revise their current programs to uh increase the the step content so to speak we are giving some incentives from them to do so and we hope that they take them up and therefore their administrative capacity is likely to be locked up into this revision exercise and we want to take into account that and we are at the legislation is proposing that therefore extra time is provided to close uh the previous programs right so that that's what I'm something that I'm aware of but I'm not sure to be honest if I'm answering the question that is in the in the chat if I'm not dancing maybe the question can be uh asked uh again but certainly we are aware of the implications in terms of capacity uh in in many member states to uh to look at again a reopen the this operational programs especially under cohesion but not only thank you so much I think this was a great response as far as I could understand and uh I just really want to say thank you to both of our speakers because we learned a lot this is a quite complex topic and a very new topic even if it's using existing instruments so thank you very much for for also the slides so can we share the slides maybe with the participants in a PDF or format that would be great because then they can also just look up all these relevant information thank you for that so we will send out a message to all the participants within the presentation and the link where we recorded the whole event and just one more thank you for all the participants also and to our speakers and we hope to see you next time when we organize something similar thank you for the opportunity tagota to explain it but it's always good these exchanges is very useful sometimes there can be lots of misunderstandings yes thank you also from my side and as I said uh we opened to uh this this type of exchanges these are uh these are one one mission of my new task force so we look forward and uh we are open to uh suggestions that have been mentioned in the in the chat to to get things uh to do more with what we have thank you David and good luck for your team thank you very much
2023-09-30