1. Tania Friederichs Policy officer, Balkans & Turkey Research and Innovation DG Tania.Friederichs@ec.europa.eu Building an Innovation Union Implementation for Enlargement countries Ohrid, 26 May 2011

2. Key Activities Excellence in education and skills Delivering the European Research Area Focusing EU funding instruments Access to finance A Single Innovation Market Openness and creative potential Social and territorial cohesion European Innovation Partnerships

3. European Council on 4/2/2011 Innovation Union on political agenda Conclusions on Implementation Four elements to address: - Smart fiscal consolidation - Improved framework conditions - Steer and monitoring at EU level - A future-oriented EU budget

4. Implementation What is valid for EU (27) also is relevant for enlargement countries In IU Communication several references to candidate and potential candidate countries (see in particular commitment 24 and point 7.1) Focus preparation for contribution

5. Suggested items (1) Formulating a long term oriented research and innovation strategy, based on an evaluation of the national research & innovation system using the self -assessment tool of the Innovation Union (Commitment 31) (2) Ensure long term ring fencing of public budget for education, research and innovation - both in use of national budget as well as in pre-accession funding (Commitment 24) (3) Promoting excellence in education and skills development according to commitment 1 (comment: better less and really good teachers/researchers than a large number of mediocre researchers/teachers) (4) Reform of public research base to open up the national research and innovation system to ERA (see commitment 4)

6. Innovation Union website http://ec.europa.eu/innovation-union/ Innovation Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/Innovation.Union Innovation unlimited blog http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/innovationunlimited