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In the context of our State Visit, which we are so happy and thankful to realize, it is a great pleasure for me this morning to participate with HM King Willem-Alexander in the opening session of this Spain-Netherlands Business Summit. It gathers a good number of outstanding companies from both countries aimed at seeking and finding business opportunities related to economic security through technology and innovation.

The world is going through a period of growing geopolitical tensions (aside from the actual and worrying conflicts), as well as profound and accelerated technological shifts. In the EU, we have introduced new tools to reinforce economic security. However, only through smart and trustful cooperation in the so-called three p´s: promoting, protecting and partnering, will EU Member States be able to face those challenges.

Today’s Business Summit is a great setting for innovative companies, from The NED and ESP to meet and explore common opportunities in order to enhance our economic and trade relations, already intense and diversified.

The choice to focus on economic security through technology and innovation in this meeting is certainly an interesting and timely one. It allows us to share knowledge about how to incorporate developing technologies and innovation processes into the core production of our companies, therefore increasing their competitive potential, while also providing a much-appreciated benefit to public policies that ought to address the main broader challenges we face today.

At this point, I would like to mention HM King Willem-Alexander’s last visit to Spain on June 2023, which focused on setting up projects related to energy security and the effort to tackle climate change, in particular through projects in the field of “green hydrogen”. Projects that actually bring us closer and help us create new synergies in areas that are ─and will be─ crucial for us, for Europe, and for the rest of the world.

This is certainly a great way to strengthen our ties even further. As it serves as a good example of how to extend our collaboration into other areas, that are equally relevant for our common objectives and future.

The Netherlands has an innovation ecosystem that represents a global benchmark. According to the Future Growth Report of the World Economic Forum, it ranks among the top ten countries in the world in terms of innovation capacity and economic resilience.

On the other hand, it is also relevant to acknowledge, in this context, that several outstanding innovation and development hubs have been set up in Spain in various advanced technological specialties (Cybersecurity, Fintech, Insurtech, Foodtech, Health and biotech), placing our country in an optimal position to create, develop and attract talent.

The importance of technology and innovation in both economies is therefore a key factor to develop future opportunities.

In the case of the Dutch economy, I would like to note here the importance of the triple helix model, a model based on a broad public-private collaboration that brings together government, technological and innovation centres, and private companies. This is a very good example of how the designing of effective policies and cooperation can result in the all-round application of innovative solutions. This creates a virtuous cycle that allows companies to develop faster new economic opportunities, resulting in improved productivity, as well as greater well-being for citizens.

For all these reasons, it makes perfect sense to present this Business Summit from a broad perspective, such as economic security, it affects all sectors and can help us identify vulnerabilities, in order to eliminate or mitigate the risks they present for our businesses, for our economies…, and this will of course benefit the EU.

Thanks to recent events, there is now a new strategic approach on economic security, in which the EU has decided to map its technological supply chain and critical infrastructure dependencies, and to work on reducing them to improve our collective security and de-risk as much as possible our economic structures and interdependence.

The two breakout sessions later today —one related to cybersecurity as the new backbone of the company, and the other on the challenges of the financial sector through innovation— are excellent examples of how to tackle external challenging factors to the benefit of society as a whole.

Today, cybersecurity has become a global concern (with a need to have a permanent 24/7 attention). In a globalised and interconnected world, malicious cyber-attacks can spread easily. Cooperation is therefore the only way to increase our collective resilience.

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