Faced with economic, environmental and demographic challenges, the Green Paper propounds an exit for Europe in the form of streamlined programmes from research to market, thereby invigorating the innovative character of research. The Green Paper revolves around three building blocks which include addressing the societal challenges, enhancing the competitiveness of Europe’s industries and finally fostering the excellence of Europe’s scientific and technological base. In order to address this broad vision, the Green Paper introduces a Common Strategic Framework where it is envisaged to bring together and streamline the Framework Programme for Research (FP7), the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP), and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).

The issues that matter for the enlargement countries in this reengineering process are manifold. One concern for the Enlargement Countries remains regarding empowering the EU Member States in building up excellence with support from Cohesion Funds, from which the Enlargement Countries cannot benefit. For Enlargement countries, compensation through mechanisms such as IPA could be considered. Furthermore, the pivotal role of industry in Public Private Partnerships and the market driven nature of Innovation Union Partnerships are considered likely to run the risk of alienating EU policies relating to enlargement. Moreover, the focus on the societal challenges is likely to call for large initiatives and to fall short of mobilising smaller but promising institutions.

The Green Paper can also be praised regarding certain aspects such as the simplified flexible rules and the acknowledgement of different levels of intervention for unfolding innovation. Similarly, strengthening the bottom-up opportunities as well as the Marie Curie scheme, the SME actions and ERC is welcomed as long as they are underpinned with territorial differentiations in line with cohesion perspective.