Dear readers,

I hope that your personal and professional lives are progressively returning to more friendly situations, in your respective countries.

We are obviously faring in quite an hybrid period, where return to office meets the first holiday departures.

Also, the summer political agenda might look fairly unusual, as intense discussions are continuing at EU level on the multi-annual financial framework (MFF), the Horizon Europe framework programme definition, and the EU recovery package ( a.k.a "Next Generation EU”), all this in a context of a rapidly shifting geopolitical scenario.

These subjects will be at the core of the EERA Summer Strategy Meeting this week, which will be introduced by Deputy Director General of DG RTD, Mr Patrick Child.

The moment is probably unique, and the balancing act between environmental, social and economic constraints promises to be extremely complex to reach, certainly, in the absence of a major overhaul of the traditional financial doctrine.

It is highly expected that Covid-19 crisis has already changed deeply - and probably durably - citizens' political priorities and choices.

With global warming generating increasingly extreme events, there is no doubt that Climate Change and the Clean Energy Transition will now be at the forefront of the political agenda.

Last week, temperatures of 38°C were recorded in Verkhoyansk, North of the Arctic Circle, causing permafrost to melt, with unknown consequences on methane emissions and possible new pandemic threats, as well as impacting man-made infrastructures.

Yesterday, French local elections resulted in a wave of green votes in many of the biggest cities, reflecting a growing voter skepticism towards traditional politics. This might well be indicative of profound political shifts to be expected, across and beyond Europe, and we must therefore anticipate that unpredictability and uncertainty will prevail in the coming months and years.

The European Commission has recently set the “Next Generation EU” as the new temporary instrument for Member States to recover and emerge stronger from the crisis, notably by accelerating the green transition. It is now the responsibility of governments to leverage this instrument to materialise and accelerate the transition to a clean economy.

In this framework, EERA must stand firm on the absolute necessity to accelerate the clean energy transition by boosting the EU R&I powerhouse.

Governments must significantly increase R&I investments and redirect recovery money to accelerate economic uptake, with accompanying measures supporting a radical divestment from unsustainable sectors of the old economy.

In this context, EERA has recently co-signed letters to Executive Vice Presidents F. Timmermans, M. Vertager and V. Dombrovskis, as well as to Commissioner M. Gabriel, in charge of Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth (see article below).

It is our collective mission to build the foundation of a fair, clean and sustainable society for all.

Adel El Gammal
EERA Secretary General