Keynote speech by President von der Leyen at the WinWin Brussels Summit

“Check against delivery”

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a pleasure to be with you today. Europe has always been a continent of great ideas. And Brussels has a long tradition. Almost 99 years ago, just a few kilometres from here, 29 of the world's leading scientists gathered. 17 of them would later become Nobel Prize winners. Among them were Albert Einstein, Maria Skłodowska-Curie, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger. They came to debate the great scientific questions of their time. Einstein and Bohr famously sparred in a battle of brilliant minds. And their arguments did not stay in the conference room. Over breakfast, Einstein would come up with a thought experiment to challenge Bohr's theories. By dinner, Bohr would have an answer. The next morning, the next breakfast, it would start again. As their fellow physicist Paul Ehrenfest later recalled, ‘Einstein was like a jack-in-the-box. Every morning, he would pop up again, refreshed.' It was a glorious moment of European science, of brilliance and free thinking.

I start with this story because today we are in another extraordinary age of innovation. We are witnessing breakthroughs with the potential to transform our economies and our societies. But there is an important difference. Today, scientific breakthroughs move from the laboratory to the marketplace at extraordinary speed. But turning them into successful enterprises here in Europe, that is Europe's challenge. We must not only remain the place of great scientific discoveries. We must again be the place where those discoveries create new industries. Create good and sustainable jobs for the European people. This is what will determine our competitiveness and our future prosperity.

The good news is that Europe starts from a position of strength. Europe accounts for almost 30% of the global patents in clean technologies. And almost one in three quantum companies worldwide is based in the EU. We have world-leading universities and research institutions. Actually, access to higher education is free. That is not something for granted all over the world. We continue to lead in many of the technologies that will shape our future. Many of you here today, represent pioneering companies. You show that Europe does not just generate brilliant ideas. We can turn them into products and services that change people's lives. Therefore, we must work together, to give you the conditions to succeed. To make Europe the best place for innovative companies to start, scale, and lead.

Today, I want to focus on three priorities to make that happen. First, unlocking the scale of our Single Market. Second, capitalising on the opportunity of the clean transition. And third, harnessing AI to bring benefits across our economies.

Let me begin with the Single Market. It is Europe's greatest asset. A market of 450 million people – one of the largest and most prosperous in the world. So, why can our innovators not take full advantage of its scale? An entrepreneur who wants to expand across Europe, still faces a maze of different rules and requirements. Instead of one market, they face 27 legal systems and more than 60 national company forms. We want to change that. With EU Inc., the so-called 28th regime. Now, what is so different about EU Inc.? It is one simple and single company form across Europe. EU Inc. allows entrepreneurs to establish a company fully online, from anywhere in Europe. Within 48 hours. And for less than €100. This helps business to start, grow, and scale across Europe. We, the Commission, have put forward an ambitious proposal. And believe me, we are fighting hard to keep that ambition with Parliament and Council. EU Inc. cannot become a heavy tanker. It must stay the slim and fast speedboat you need.

Our entrepreneurs also need capital. European scale-ups typically raise 50% less capital than their peers in San Francisco. So, when they need hundreds of millions to expand, they are often forced to look across the Atlantic. We want to change that. That is why we launched the Scaleup Europe Fund. We brought together public and private investors, to create Europe's largest growth-stage equity fund. And it works. In just two months, the Fund has invested in eight companies and helped them raise close to €5 billion. These companies are building the technologies that will shape our future. For example: reusable spacecraft, a new generation of ultra-efficient AI chips, radar satellites that can see through clouds. These companies have what it takes to become world leaders. And with the Scaleup Fund, we are giving them the capital they need to succeed and stay right here in Europe.

My second point is on the clean transition. This year, we have again seen the devastating impact of climate change. Droughts, wildfires, floods. But we have also seen the cost of our dependence on imported fossil fuels. Since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, imported fossil fuels cost Europe an additional €127 billion without a single molecule of energy in addition. When we import oil and gas, we risk importing the shocks and crises that come with them. So, the clean transition is on one hand protecting our climate. But it is also about Europe's competitiveness and independence.

Our direction of travel is clear. We will become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. And we took a major step towards that goal, with the agreement on our 2040 climate target. We have committed to cut Europe's emissions by 90% by 2040. I know that many of you have already invested in this future. In new technologies and production processes. Since 2021, over €1.2 trillion have been invested in sustainable activities across the EU. These are investments that require long-term certainty. So let me be crystal clear: Europe will stay the course, we stick to our targets, and we back our clean industries.

And there is growing evidence that climate ambition is a powerful engine for innovation and growth. The global clean technology market is growing by around 20% every year. This is an enormous opportunity. Our task is to ensure that the technologies are not only used in Europe but developed and manufactured here. We have powerful tools to make that happen. Take our Emissions Trading System. Since its introduction in 2005, emissions in the sectors covered by ETS have fallen by around 50%. The economy has grown by 30%, and it has generated over €270 billion in revenues to reinvest in innovation and in the clean technologies of the future. And we are working on an Industrial Decarbonisation Bank. We aim to mobilise €100 billion to support industrial transformation. In a nutshell, this is how we turn Europe's climate ambition into an industrial advantage. We do not only cut emissions, we are building new industries.

My final priority is artificial intelligence. AI presents an enormous opportunity to increase prosperity and improve lives. In order to realise this potential, we need to put AI to work in the real economy. We see excellent examples of this here today. Take AI monitoring industrial machinery. It can help spot problems early so that maintenance teams can intervene before equipment breaks down. Or let me give you another societal example – on breast cancer screening. Mammography screening reduces mortality by around 30%-40% among women who attend. Early detection is of the essence. This is where AI can step in. AI-supported mammography can identify earlier and more cancers during screening. And as a result, more women can survive. So we need AI for health. These are two very different applications. But they highlight the same opportunity – to combine Europe's strengths with the transformative power of AI. And here, Europe has real advantages. We have world-leading industries, a long-standing manufacturing tradition, deep scientific expertise, and vast amounts of valuable industrial data. Our task is to bring these advantages together and put AI to work. Move it from the screen to the real world. That is why, earlier this year, I appointed Jim Snabe as Special Envoy for Industrial Artificial Intelligence. Let me give you one example of his work – transport. Here, AI can bring enormous benefits. For example, autonomous vehicles could reduce accidents involving pedestrians by over 90%. And we want Europe to be a place where these vehicles are designed and built. Not just where they are used. So, we must give our innovators the conditions for success. That means faster and simpler approval for autonomous vehicles. Companies should be able to go through a single approval process. And once a technology is approved, companies should be able to deploy it across Europe. Without any additional barriers. So our innovators can develop for a truly European market from day one on.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I began with the story of the 1927 Solvay Conference, when the greatest scientific minds in history gathered here in Brussels. They came with extraordinary knowledge. But what made them exceptional was their willingness to challenge what they thought they knew and to imagine what others thought impossible. As Einstein put it: ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge. Because it is imagination that embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.' A century later, those words still ring true. Europe still has extraordinary scientific talent. But we must match it with imagination. The imagination to turn discoveries into products that change lives, to build industries that do not yet exist, and shape a future that we can only begin to imagine.

Thank you. And long live Europe.