It's been almost a year since Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron revived the EU's Franco-German engine to propose a recovery fund against the coronavirus pandemic with common debt. But the energy generated from Berlin and Paris still circulates through the gears of the European Union without combustion. The money hasn't arrived, hasn't even begun to be issued, and meanwhile the United States already has a new president who has launched an unprecedented economic recovery plan. "We have to be clear, we were very efficient last year in adopting the European recovery plan and the decision to issue common debt. But since then, we have lost too much time, China has regained its growth and the United States is already bouncing back", French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire acknowledged on Tuesday.

Negotiators strive to say that "the climate is good" while the social environment and economic confidence is as thick as fog on good days, and on bad days it is the windstorm that precedes the hurricane at the end of the furlough scheme.

The European Union (EU) funds are the great opportunity. All experts consulted by the ARA agree that they are the opportunity to transform the Catalan and Spanish industry to make them more competitive. "Those who will benefit the most are the value chain of the industry", Fàtima Vidal, professor at the UPF, says. But there are still doubts in all sectors about who can benefit and how they will be awarded. Only the main lines are known, and SMEs, which have suffered greatly from the crisis caused by the pandemic, fear that a large part of this money will go only to large corporations.

With Next Generation funds, we aim to strengthen the health system, to make a significant contribution to the decarbonisation goals of the Paris Agreement, which the European Union has enthusiastically embraced, and to complete the digitisation of public administration and the economy. These three goals have one thing in common: they all challenge research and innovation systems. Without major scientific and technological breakthroughs, we will not succeed, and neither will we succeed without business adopting them.