During the plenary debate with Elisa Ferreira, Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, and Iliana Ivanova, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, ECR ECON coordinator Ilpo Heltimoinen welcomed the European Commission's initiatives to boost competitiveness and innovation, but called for more focus to preparing regions for the challenges of tomorrow.

Mr Heltimoinen, the CoR rapporteur for an ongoing opinion on regional economic resilience, stressed that for a more robust approach, the Commission should explore initiatives that simultaneously support resilience through innovation: "There is no competitiveness without resilience, and no resilience without competitiveness".

Concluding, Mr Heltimoinen urged the Commission to further explore opportunities which support innovation for resilience specifically, including supply chain diversification-related initiatives: "In the future, let's take this combined approach, and build a Europe that is not only a leader in innovation but also a model of resilience in the face of challenges".