Italian President Sergio Mattarella
on Friday highlighted the relevance of a report on EU
competitiveness released earlier this month by former Italian
premier and European central banker Mario Draghi at a meeting
organized by the foundation for technological innovation Cotec
on technological sovereignty and the environment in Las Palmas
de Gran Canaria, Spain.
"Once again, a current theme of great relevance has been chosen,
which is part of an ongoing strategic debate in Brussels on
which Mario Draghi has also recently intervened with an
influential report", the president said.
"In the report - focusing as we all know on European
competitiveness - the productivity gap between the European
Union, United States and China is mainly blamed on the
technological sector", Matteralla told the Cotec meeting in Las
Palmas.
The president went on to note that the EU is "weak in emerging
technologies that will drive future growth: only four of the
world's most important 50 technological firms are, in fact,
European.
"We can therefore agree on the fact that Europe must deeply
refocus its collective efforts to fill the innovation gap", he
noted.
Mattarella noted that Europe should "push the accelerator,
implementing measures that allow it to promote its industrial
capabilities in highly technological sectors".
It must boost its presence in sectors that will increasingly
impact lives in the future and "the possibility of responding to
the numerous challenges of the future - environmental
sustainability, the fight against phenomena of climate change,
human health" in order to grant citizens improved living
conditions.
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