24 Jan 2024
EC presents package on economic security including research security
The European Commission has presented five initiatives to strengthen the EU's economic security at a time of growing geopolitical tensions and profound technological shifts. The economic security package was adopted on 24 January 2024 and aims to enhance the EU's economic security while upholding the openness of trade, investment, and research for the EU's economy, in line with the June 2023 European Economic Security Strategy.
Today's proposals are part of a broader three-pillar approach to EU economic security by promoting the EU's competitiveness, protecting against risks and partnering with the broadest possible range of countries to advance shared economic security interests.
The package includes the following five initiatives:
- Council Recommendation on research security
- White Paper on options for enhancing support for research and development involving technologies with dual-use potential
- Proposal for a new regulation on the screening of foreign investment
- White Paper on export controls
- White Paper on outbound investments
The two research-related initiatives aim at
- promoting further discussions on how to better support research and development involving technologies with dual-use potential;
- proposing that the Council recommends measures aimed at enhancing research security at national and sector level.
With its White Paper on options for enhancing support of research and development (R&D) of technologies with dual-use potential, the Commission is launching a public consultation(opening shortly and open until 30 April 2024). The White Paper contributes to the ‘promote' dimension of the European Economic Security Strategy, aiming at maintaining a competitive edge in critical and emerging technologies with the potential to be used for both civil and defence purposes.
The White Paper reviews current relevant EU funding programmes in the face of existing and emerging geopolitical challenges and assesses whether this support is adequate for technologies with dual-use potential. It then outlines three options for the way forward: (1) going further based on the current set-up, (2) removing the exclusive focus on civil applications in selected parts of the successor programme to Horizon Europe, and (3) creating a dedicated instrument with a specific focus on R&D with dual-use potential.
The Commission's proposal for a Council Recommendation for enhancing research security at national and sector level has been prepared against the background of today's complex geopolitical context, where the openness and borderless cooperation in the research and innovation sector may be exploited and turned into vulnerabilities. Results of international research and innovation cooperation can be used for military purposes in third countries, or in violation of fundamental values. Higher education and research institutions can fall victim to malign influence by authoritarian states.
The aim of the proposed Recommendation is to provide more clarity, guidance and support to Member States and the research and innovation sector at large. The EC stresses that EU action is required to ensure consistency across Europe and to avoid a patchwork of measures, to mitigate the risks to research security, and to ensure that international research and innovation cooperation is both open and safe. The overall approach follows the principle ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary' as regards international research cooperation.
For more information:
Proposal for a Council Recommendation on enhancing research security
Factsheet - Proposal for a Council Recommendation on enhancing research security