Negotiations with the European Commission on the Recovery and Resilience Facility have crossed the finish line, and new support measures will begin to open at the start of next year. At a time when the EU’s focus is on industrial ecosystems and energy prices are a daily topic of debate in Estonia, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications is nevertheless taking it upon itself to direct 9 million euros towards “ensuring the continuity of production in an effective manner, with a focus on overall sustainable development,” and to support providers of resource planning, automation, and other software solutions for manufacturing industry and logistics companies with 58 million euros. Meanwhile, the industry investment plan — agreed with both the European Commission and Estonian interest groups during the Facility negotiations — has been thrown in the bin.
As an entrepreneur and consultant, I am understandably delighted that the Facility funds are creating a brand new market for us. What could one possibly object to in the opportunity to “conduct observations in companies, interview key employees, analyse business operations, and formulate a roadmap” for 10,000 euros — and then help the same company secure a 300,000-euro grant with which the company “carries out the transformation of its business model”? Many thanks for this gift!
At the same time, I am profoundly embarrassed in front of all those who invested in the Recovery and Resilience Facility negotiations and counted on the agreements as a basis for making Estonian enterprises more competitive on the global market. Which they genuinely were. Embarrassed in front of all those who believed that at least the state aid flowing from the Facility to industrial enterprises would become accessible in a way that generates real economic value, rather than simply increasing the volume and cost of outsourced consulting and IT services.
The billion-euro support package of the Recovery and Resilience Facility lands in the Estonian economy as part of the EU’s restart plan — that is, as part of the EU budget. Accordingly, on the reverse side of every euro received as direct support from the Facility is an entry for the additional amount that Estonia’s contribution to the EU budget will increase by. In the broader picture, according to the Chancellor of Justice’s assessment, Estonia will in the future make payments to the EU budget that are 34 million euros per year higher than at present. Sufficient reason to stop playing the digital and green transition funding game into one single goal.
EU funding always supports broader developments than the interests of any individual member state. Regrettably, in this respect we find ourselves out of step with developments in European industrial policy — placed around the corner, facing the past. The common industrial data space, robotisation, the EU data cloud — these topics, unfortunately, do not resonate with us. The concept of digitalisation in Estonia continues to be defined by consultants and vendors of specific services in a specific sector, not by developers of new technologies. The result is a rhetoric that equates digitalisation, automation, and process efficiency with a single equals sign. This is, regrettably, a disservice to the support of Estonia’s industrial development, as it deprives companies of the opportunity to receive investment support in the areas of development that are actually needed. And what is actually needed, above all, is equipment, connected devices, and digital technologies — solutions that make digitalisation happen.
Equally important, though less tangibly visible, is the fact that in this way we are failing to link the support provided to our enterprises with the broader EU industrial policy picture. As a result, our companies lose the opportunity to be part of EU-level framework programmes — such as InvestEU, the Single Market Programme, and the instruments of Horizon Europe designed to develop and support industrial ecosystems. In other words, companies lose the opportunity to leverage their investments through EU direct support and financial instruments.
In pandemic-era and post-pandemic discussion forums and panels, it has become customary to speak of an ongoing global structural shift in which value chains are being reconsidered. Since EU measures and loan funds are flowing in massively, we have the resources to emerge from this structural shift victoriously. Unfortunately, however, where there should be analysis-based understanding of the structural shift’s impact on the competitiveness of Estonian enterprises, there is instead a perfect black hole. Forgive me — a bin. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications is busily fulfilling the orders of consulting and IT service vendors, while forgetting the commitments under which we were to make Estonian enterprises more competitive on the global market.
This article was published in Eesti Päevaleht on 23 December 2021. Anu Kull: taasterahastust saadava tulu asemel suureneb hoopis ettevõtetele IT-teenuste maht ja hind — Eesti Päevaleht (delfi.ee)