ICONANNUAL

Statements from previous years
2013
Liliyana Pavlova
Minister of Regional Development &
Public Works, Bulgaria
DI Nikolaus Berlakovich
Austrian Federal Minister for
Agriculture, Forestry, Environment
and Water Management.
Mag. Wilhelm Molterer
Vice-President and member of the
Management Committee of the
European Investment Bank
The innovation policy is one of
the key areas for enhancing
the competitiveness of the
economy and accelerating the growth
potential.
In the context of the objectives of
Europe 2020, most of the Danube
region countries should put their
efforts into: regional cooperation,
sustainable integrated regional
development, use of the local potential,
sustainable management of the
natural resources, energy efficiency,
improving the transport connectivity
and access to the markets, as well as
better education quality and highly
qualified workforce, innovative
infrastructure and high added value
production.
The chance to tackle the
economic and climate crisis is to
create a social, environmental
and competitive economy. Ecoinnovation
and new environmental
technologies are sustainable sources
of growth and job creation, with great
opportunities through environmental
technologies and energy from
biomass, solar, hydro and wind.
Currently, there are approximately
185,000 green jobs in Austria, by
increasing the share of renewable
energy to 34% further 75,000 jobs will
be created. My Ministry will establish
itself as a location for research, skill,
technology and labor. The iconvienna
is an important event to achieve the
objective to establish Austria as a hub
for sustainable development.
Europe has to ensure a right
balance between shortterm
goals and long-term
visions on its path to sustainable
economic growth and long-term
competitiveness. Thinking longterm,
one crucial task is to provide
a smooth transition to knowledgebased
society. Despite Europe’s
strong position in the development
of new technologies, including key
enabling technologies, it suffers
from its weakness in translating
its knowledge base into goods and
services. Investment in research and
innovation with reinforced focus on
innovation and commercialisation of
new technologies is critical for Europe
if it does not want to be side-lined by
new actors in the global game.
2012
2013
2013
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