CECIMO took part in the second meeting of the new High Level Group on Key Enabling Technologies (KETs)

The second meeting of the HLG on KETs took place on 16 July 2013, in Brussels. During the meeting the HLG presented a Status Implementation Report, which includes 10 recommendations addressing the European Commission and Member States to will help strengthen key enabling technologies in the EU. Vice-Presidents of the European Commission Antonio Tajani and Neelie Kroes were present at the meeting.
Vice President Antonio Tajani said: "Our KETs strategy aims to support the industry's efforts in transforming innovative ideas into new products and services. To do this, increasing investments in research is not enough. It is also necessary to redirect funds towards a research which is closer to the market". He stated that the recommendations in this report will provide important contribution to Commission in monitoring the progress made in the implementation of the European KETs strategy and will be taken into account in the analysis that the Commission will present in September 2013 to the Competitiveness Council. This analysis will also be presented to the European Council summit in February 2014 which will be dedicated to industrial competitiveness.
Mr. Javier Eguren, member of the High Level Group (HLG) on KETs and former CECIMO President, said that the HLG recommendations provide a strong framework for the implementation of integrated strategy across the EU which will contribute to boosting value added manufacturing activities. “Some of these recommendations are particularly important for the advanced manufacturing technologies and the machine tool industry. For instance, facilitating the access of SMEs to industrial-scale prototyping and test platforms and boosting cooperation among small and large companies in the same value chain can help rapidly bring research results close to the market. This would provide European manufacturers with a competitive edge vis-à-vis global competitors.” he said.
Mr Filip Geerts, CECIMO Director General and Sherpa, said: “Today, it is recognized that Europe needs to be at the forefront in advanced manufacturing technologies to be able to invent next-generation products and to build the future KETs and multi-KETs plants. The European manufacturing industry can remain strong if only it is competitive globally. Therefore, we highly value the recommendations in the report which calls on Member States to pro-actively support skills development and the internationalization of SMEs.”
KETs are one of the key priorities for investment listed in the Commission’s industrial policy Communication launched in October 2012. The main purpose of this new HLG on KETs is to assist the European Commission in the implementation of the European strategy to boost the industrial production of KETs-based products in Europe. The new HLG was created in February 2013, and CECIMO was invited by the Commission to become a member of the group as representative of the advanced manufacturing technologies sector. Mr Javier Eguren, former CECIMO President, was appointed as member of the HLG and he is assisted in this work by Mr. Filip Geerts, CECIMO Director General in his capacity as Sherpa.
To read more on KETs, visit:
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/ict/key_technologies/kets_high_level_group_en.htm