Brussels, 11 October 2018 – The fifteenth edition of the State of Europe roundtable, organised today by think tank Friends of Europe, debated different scenarios for Europe in 2030, as set out in its #EuropeMatters report. The aim was to gather the collective intelligence of participants to co-produce concrete policy recommendations for next year’s incoming European leadership.
Representing Cefic, Dr Markus Steilemann, CEO of Covestro urged the need to create an environment supporting innovation for sustainability in the broad sense: financially, with a long-term perspective, including whole value chains and with a clear focus. Risk, associated with innovation or new technologies should be shared by public funding in programmes like Horizon Europe, for all partners, he stated. It is often overlooked that innovation takes time, with decisions taken now perhaps only becoming a reality in ten years’ time. And that low carbon solutions might well include certain elements in their value chain that are energy-intensive. Lastly, he suggested introducing an innovation-check for policies to make sure they are designed in such a way that the development of new products can continue.
Cefic is currently forging a mid-century strategy, to sketch a future vision of society and the chemical industry and illustrate how the European chemical industry can contribute to solving future societal challenges.
#EuropeMatters is a twelve month project bringing together business leaders, policymakers, civil society representatives and citizens to co-design a Europe that still matters in 2030.