site.btaBulgaria’s Commissioner-designate Ekaterina Zaharieva Will Be Given Hearing in EP on Tuesday

Ekaterina Zaharieva, Bulgaria’s candidate for EU Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation Ekaterina Zaharieva will be given a hearing in the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday, November 5.

If approved, she will be one of 11 women in the new Commission, whose president will again be Ursula von der Leyen.

Forty-nine-year-old Zaharieva's hearing will be on the same day as that of the Austrian and Danish candidates - Magnus Brunner (European People's Party) and Dan Jorgensen (Socialists and Democrats), who are in charge of Home Affairs and Migration and Energy and Housing. Also to be heard on Tuesday will be Ireland's Michael McGrath (Renew Europe), who is in charge of Democracy, Justice and the Rule of Law.

Zaharieva's hearing will take place at EP's Jozsef Antall building in the Belgian capital. It will start at 9 am local time and will last three hours.

After a short opening speech of 15 minutes, Zaharieva will answer MEPs' questions in order to get their approval. Zaharieva will have to elaborate how she sees her portfolio and what legislative and other initiatives she will propose to the new European Commission. She will also be expected to comment on how she would defend the EU budget for research and innovation policies.

Two committees will test the Bulgarian candidate - the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, which is in charge of the hearing, and the Committee on Culture and Education, which is participating by invitation.

Programme

Ekaterina Zaharieva identifies the development of the next research framework programme as her main priorities and sets a target for investment in research and development (R&D) to reach 3% of EU gross domestic product. This will be done both by increasing EU funding and by mobili\ing private capital and developing public-private partnerships.

In her programme letter, Zaharieva pledges to propose a new European Research Area Act, which would underpin the free movement of researchers, scientific knowledge and technology, as well as a European Innovation Act to ensure the growth of startups and help them tackle legal barriers and administrative burdens. Ekaterina Zaharieva also noted that she would support youth and work for greater participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in innovation and to promote public-private partnerships.

In her written answers, Ekaterina Zaharieva also promises a strategy for the use of artificial intelligence in science, support for a faster green and digital transition and the development of a European life sciences strategy that will also cover biotechnology. The Bulgarian Commissioner-designate has committed to a regulation on the utilization of new super materials as well as an action plan to promote women in science, innovation and start-ups.

Portfolio

Experts in Brussels have identified research and innovation as a key policy area for tackling global challenges such as health, climate change and biodiversity loss, and as particularly important for optimizing EU preparedness and response to crises.

In the current context of geopolitical tensions, research and innovation are also essential to strategically strengthen the EU's independence. According to a Eurobarometer survey carried out in EU countries in April and May this year, around 12% of respondents believe that inventions, science and technology contribute most to the sense of community among EU citizens, ahead of the economy, health and sport.

There is no official information on the amount of financial resources Ekaterina Zaharieva will be responsible for if her candidacy is approved. In his report on the bloc's competitiveness, former Italian prime minister and former head of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi described the portfolio entrusted to Ekaterina Zaharieva as key to the EU's future, but noted that Europe spends an insufficient share of its defence spending on research and development - around 4.5% compared to 16% in the US. He called for doubling EU's flagship research and innovation budget to EUR 200 billion over the next seven-year planning cycle, from 2028-2034.

In recent years, the European technology sector has significantly lagged behind its competitors. Investment in research and development in Europe is only a fifth of that in the US and half of that in China, while investment in artificial intelligence is around 50 times higher in the US compared to Europe. Only four of the world's top 50 largest IT companies are European, and nearly a third of the continental "unicorns" (companies with capitalization of more than USD 1 billion) created between 2008 and 2021 have moved their headquarters to the US, Mario Draghi's report also noted.