European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Speech of the Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera at the Politecnico di Torino Foresight & Innovation International Award 2026 Brussels, 12 June 2026 Magnificent Rector, President of the Academy, President of the Panel, members of the jury, colleagues, friends, I am really moved. I am moved because you have said so many kind and important things. We share a vis...
European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Speech of the Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera at the Politecnico di Torino Foresight & Innovation International Award 2026 Brussels, 12 June 2026 Magnificent Rector, President of the Academy, President of the Panel, members of the jury, colleagues, friends, I am really moved. I am moved because you have said so many kind and important things. We share a vision, we share a commitment, we share a hope, and we know that we need to do our best to fulfil these expectations. We need to build a pathway that is not easy to build. But in fact, the worst thing we could do is to stay still. We need to address the challenges and keep moving, taking decisions. I am also very happy because I have received this message that I now leave some of my roots in Torino. That is such a good thing. So, allow me to begin by expressing my deepest gratitude to all of you for your generosity today, and for the inspiration this university has provided over so many years as a remarkable engine of creativity, critical thinking and innovation. I also want to express my gratitude to the Academy, in this magnificent room that pays tribute to culture, knowledge and books. It is so important to keep reading in order to develop our own critical thinking. It is so important to keep reading in order to develop critical thinking within the community in Torino. This applies to every group that belongs to this community: industrial partners, civil society, researchers, academia, people with institutional responsibilities, and people who want to contribute to this very challenging experience of change. Torino knows very well what this means. You have a very deep relationship between innovation and society, and you know that this is not a simple challenge. Innovation can make everyday life easier. It may enable us to do more with fewer resources, to live longer and healthier lives, and to expand the boundaries of human possibility. Yet innovation also brings uncertainty. It brings challenges of adaptation, transitions in labour markets and in cities, and concerns about how we can prepare future generations for a rapidly evolving world. You said it very well: time is one of the scarcest resources. New technologies do not arrive in a political vacuum. As you also stated, embedded within every technological transformation are essential questions: who shapes innovation? Who defines the rules? Who benefits from access? Who bears the cost? And, ultimately, who captures the rewards? This is precisely where Europe's model matters. At this crossroads between innovation and fair access to its benefits, we recognise Europe's central political challenge for the decades ahead. We recognise the ultimate goal: to keep building together. And now, in this sudden turmoil all over the world, we know that we want to strengthen our Union and ensure its success in a context where economies, trade, energy, raw materials, and even the suffering of people fleeing war and hunger are increasingly weaponised. That is not the world we expected. But it is the world we face today, and we need to address it and overcome it. As a committed European, I would say that our Union represents one of the most ambitious political, social and economic innovations in modern history. More than 70 years ago, a courageous generation of visionary leaders made the extraordinary decision to build peace and prosperity beyond narrow national interests. And I am sure that this was not an easy decision. It was not an easy exercise. I could also add that, as a member of the so called progressive political family, I remain deeply committed to the idea of progress: shaping the conditions that allow European values to flourish, while ensuring a high quality of life for all citizens. But allow me to share with you a nice conversation with a very good friend of mine from the so called conservative political family. She told me: “I am a conservative person because I want to preserve what is good.” Are these two visions, progressive and conservative, incompatible? No, of course not. There may be issues on which we have differences, but we share some ultimate goals, even if we have different views on how to achieve them. What we must confront is not difference itself, but disrespect and the misuse of political disagreement. We should instead build on that spirit, keeping a people centred vision of how to respond to the challenges we face. There is great room to find common ground: protecting what has been achieved in the past while shaping a better future. And it is time to recover this spirit, to shape the means to ensure that we do our best together, and to remember why we are here. Is this innovation in politics, or is it simply a reminder of what is expected of us? This is the relevant question at a time when public debate is often framed in terms of trade offs: competitiveness versus social justice, industry versus environmental protection, regulation versus standards, values versus power, peace versus strategic capabilities. Reality requires us to find a way to integrate each of these elements. Sustainable competitiveness is not possible with impoverished citizens lacking rights. In the same way, an industrial model cannot succeed in the long term without a smarter strategy that respects the limits of nature and the climate. We cannot accept simplifications that dismantle our shared environmental and social standards across our continent. We need to find our way. Our duty is to make this balance work in practice and to ensure that it is supported by society. Europe and our Union do matter in this discussion. A month ago, I attended the ceremony for the 2026 Charlemagne Prize awarded to Mario Draghi. In his speech, he rightly observed that Europeans are not truly alone together. Yet he also reminded us that we face a profound opportunity to rediscover Europe, to recognise once again what binds us together, and to define what we want to build collectively. Rediscovering Europe means building progress on the foundations of solidarity, respect, reliability, integration, and the creation of wealth to ensure well being. It means acting with courage and unlocking the full potential of a united continent. Therefore, we may wonder what kind of Europe we want to build together, and how we align domestic and external policies. We want to generate growth and prosperity while remaining faithful to our social model and narrowing the competitiveness and innovation gaps with other global economies. This requires an honest assessment of our strengths and our weaknesses. It also requires finding ways to build resilience and security in the face of disruption, whether driven by geopolitical conflict or by the accelerating effects of climate change. But let us make no mistake: we have strengths. Many strengths. Let us begin with a broadly shared commitment to maintaining the highest standards of living for Europeans. Let us rely on our open market economy, while recognising the need to rebalance the relationship between the global and the local, and to ensure greater reciprocity and transparency in environmental and social standards. This also applies when thinking about our European industries that comply with these standards, and about those coming from abroad seeking access to our markets. We know that the right answers to succeed will involve considerable effort and, once again, common alignment. They will require us to realign our external policies with a more unpredictable and fragmented world, while continuing to defend the rule of law, individual rights and freedoms, peace and prosperity. Sustained growth calls for deepening the Single Market, reducing strategic dependencies, managing security risks, and developing smarter and more balanced ways to produce goods and services. But this is also a great opportunity to build around a common endeavour that keeps us together and bravely engaged. In fact, it is the only way forward. This may mean accepting that the most ambitious Member States lead the way for a while, to be followed by others, as we did with the euro. Because staying frozen, stopped and unable to act is not a way forward. This also means that, to succeed, we should never forget the changing conditions and the major impact of climate change on the environment in which we operate and design our decisions. Regardless of the narratives we hear, whether framed as threats or used as instruments of fear, there are things that we cannot ignore: climate impacts on our lives and economies, and constraints on resources. We need new thinking on economics and politics, and a new social contract between generations and between people living today on the very same planet, on our very same continent. We can join forces to provide the right answers in this new economic paradigm. Clean tech, in particular clean energy solutions, clean tech for industrial value chains, the wise use of resources, the identification of new materials and new solutions, artificial intelligence, these are not simply sectors worth growing. They are the tip of the iceberg shaping our success or our failure. It is within this context that innovation is already taking shape. Not as a story of isolated geniuses or mavericks, because innovation, as has also been recognised, is a collective endeavour. Public schools, universities, publicly funded research, shared infrastructure, and commitment from the industrial community are among our most valuable collective instruments. They form the foundations on which many technological breakthroughs are built. Exchanges, discussions and peer reviews cannot be replaced by algorithms. Algorithms may help, but we need a broader change built around emotions, sensitivity and data. The partnership between public and private efforts, our collective work, has delivered real results. And this city is a magnificent example of that. Science, knowledge, clean tech solutions, renewable energy and digital transformations have generated real gains in productivity, connectivity, human capability and human well being. Addressing eventual disparities is essential for innovation to retain public trust and legitimacy. Democracies must remain strong, and inclusion and fairness are the safeguards that underpin prosperity in our societies. Citizens must feel empowered not only to understand and benefit from change, but also to participate in shaping it. When any of us understands both the opportunities and the challenges that accompany innovation, we are more likely to embrace change rather than fear it. Only by ensuring that the gains from innovation are broadly shared can we build resilience, not only against economic disruption and inequality, but also against populism, polarisation and the fear that often emerge when people feel left behind. Let us turn to the challenges posed by climate change and energy. Never in human history has the threat of environmental, economic and social disruption been so widespread and tangible. The evidence is no longer confined to models or theoretical projections. It is visible in the data and increasingly apparent in people's lived experiences. From extreme weather events and rising temperatures to biodiversity loss and mounting pressure on natural resources, the pace of change is as alarming as it is difficult to fully comprehend. While the consequences of inaction will remain with us for generations, the irreversible nature of many of these changes is now well established by science. And despite the overwhelming body of evidence, we may still waste time saying that we can delay, that it is not so obvious, or that it is ideologically biased. We cannot waste time. The challenges are troubling enough to embrace priorities based on rationality, evidence and long term responsibility. These cannot be portrayed as ideological positions. In reality, it is the opposite. Delaying action means accepting greater risk, higher costs and deeper human suffering in the future. It places short term interests above the collective well being of present and future generations. And allow me to say, in full agreement with the President of the Region, that this does not mean that the answer is easy, evident or univocal. We need to pave the way. We need to build the pathway. But the lack of action is deeply costly. It is harmful. It is unfair. The challenge before us is not only technological or economic, although it is also that. It is also political and societal. Building a sustainable future requires us to place scientific evidence at the centre of decision making. It requires us to resist the temptation to pay attention only to the challenges of today, while forgetting the long term challenges. We need to build the bridge between today's challenges and tomorrow's vision. Innovation, investment and collective action are not optional choices. They are essential tools for preventing greater instability, ensuring a more resilient and equitable future, and, ultimately, ensuring that democracy has a chance. It is in this setting that innovative industrial processes and effective solutions with new materials meet competitiveness. It is in this setting that the energy transition becomes climate and economic security, industrial opportunity and a strong social shield. Fossil fuel dependence creates geopolitical vulnerability, climate costs and long term fragility. Recent years have made clear the risks of volatile energy prices linked to geopolitical tensions. Decarbonising the European economy is not only a climate or moral imperative. It is a strategic transformation that fosters our competitiveness, our resilience, our economic sovereignty and our capacity to keep building our industrial soul. This transformation demands the best of all of us. It requires a candid dialogue between researchers and technologists, between individuals and policy makers, civil society organisations and investors. It requires optimising complex energy systems in real time, including the management of renewable generation, storage, demand response, grid infrastructure and continental scale systems. The type of things that you work on is precisely the type of challenge that we will need to address. But it is also the type of challenge that AI may be able to handle efficiently. AI can accelerate the discovery of materials for next generation storage and clean energy technologies. It can enhance the modelling of industrial processes to identify the most effective decarbonisation pathways, or the most effective use of existing infrastructure. The tools now available represent a genuine advance over what existed a decade ago. But we should acknowledge that new tensions may emerge. AI systems themselves consume significant and growing quantities of energy. The International Energy Agency projects that data centres will account for a rapidly growing share of global electricity demand between now and 2030, with real implications for grid planning, investment, distribution costs and benefits, access to scarce resources, and, eventually, competing tensions that cannot be ignored. This is why, in the Commission, we decided to develop an Energy and AI roadmap, treating the two domains as twins rather than as separate fields, and complementing the different flagship initiatives for this decade. Overall, for Europe, the transition to net zero is not a cost imposed on the economy. It is the very organising logic of our future competitiveness. Our competitive future is decarbonised, aiming for the most integrated, intelligent and sustainable energy and industrial systems in the world. It is also a great opportunity to work on these models with partners who are making compatible choices. We Europeans still need to deploy the right infrastructure and the right skills, ensuring that these changes are experienced as a common benefit, properly served and fairly financed. Without this sense of common purpose, and without societal support, the speed of change will be weakened. And the transformation goes far beyond energy or industrial processes. Physical conditions modified by climate change have deep consequences for our economies and societies. If we want social equity for a fair future free from fear, we need to think about resilience and adaptation to climate impacts. Because thinking about adaptation means thinking about people. It means identifying the next round of challenges. The effects of climate change are distributed unevenly across territories and within society. Economic inequality, unequal access to services and social protection, and demographic dynamics in certain areas undermine social resilience. This is why today's ambition and today's vision will determine future impacts. Fair climate policies must take into account the acceptance of intergenerational risk, and must be guided by the ethical requirements of fair and sustainable resource management. Children and young people have legitimate interests and are stakeholders in current public policies. Ignoring or downplaying the terrible consequences of inaction in the years to come is the worst betrayal of our children. Protection from climate related risks also requires innovation in the decision making process. The political and social dimensions must learn to interact in order to achieve decisions that are socially supported and technically and economically viable. Adaptation forces us to ask ourselves other “what if” questions. What will happen to water and energy supply? What will happen to public health systems? What will happen to human settlements? And also: how do we correctly define what constitutes an acceptable level of risk? What are the most effective options for reducing this risk? This cannot be an abstract and global scenario. Managing the looming risks, the possible scenarios and the adequate responses should be guided by the principle of resilience by design. This becomes a huge and demanding need. Useful innovative tools are emerging. For instance, stress tests for identifying critical environmental and social points, local scenario visualisers, local players, mayors and municipalities. These can help integrate data from various socioeconomic disciplines to enable tailored solutions. For example: heat islands, flood prone areas, vulnerable housing, disadvantaged groups, or the percentage of elderly people who may suffer the most. They link the best available science on risk and public management with a very local focus. Because let us not fool ourselves: the danger is not fear itself, but not having the right answers to respond to fear. The key lies in balancing knowledge of risks with solutions to them. Avoiding the perception of risk is dangerous, because it can create a false sense of security. Undermining people's ability to respond to extreme events is not a solution. Having no convincing answers to face the challenges does not help either. Much like climate change and the energy transition, artificial intelligence is no longer a question reserved for engineers or innovation policy alone. It is rapidly becoming a political, economic and societal question, one that will shape not only productivity and competitiveness, but also power, governance and democracy itself. Artificial intelligence offers major opportunities. Used wisely, it has the potential to improve lives and expand human capabilities in remarkable ways. But artificial intelligence is not only transforming markets or promoting efficiency in value chains. It determines how citizens receive information, how decisions can be made, and ultimately how democratic decisions are formed. So, while we support the idea of efficiency, we also want to build a people centred digital future that strengthens prosperity, fairness and democratic resilience. Europe must develop its capabilities with confidence and coherence. It must reduce dependencies on technologies developed elsewhere, hosted elsewhere, and governed according to priorities defined elsewhere, which could risk our ability to shape our own future. Europe has always benefited from openness and cooperation. But openness cannot mean vulnerable dependency or acceptance of an increasing social divide. It means preserving the capacity to make choices. Europe must understand, audit and govern the technologies that increasingly affect core public services. We must invest in research, computing capacity, digital infrastructure and skills. We must identify where we can reach the materials that we may need. We must support research centres while retaining the talent that Europe helps to educate. We need to work together in this field. Digital markets naturally tend towards concentration. Access to data, computing power and scale creates enormous advantages for a small number of actors. And where economic concentration becomes excessive, concentration of power may eventually follow. Again, do we want to live together? Are we committed to preserving our democratic models? That is what we already witness: the capacity to frame visions and develop winners and losers, the power to control freedoms and liberties, the ability to shape every single aspect of how services and businesses function, the power to design perceptions and influence thinking. And again, innovation is not only related to technology. It comes back to governance, social involvement and how we frame challenges in the most appropriate way, including the fair distribution of benefits and costs. So you will not be surprised when you hear again about the need to discuss taxing robots. Finally, let me turn to another major ongoing challenge: our vocation to act as a political actor in today's geopolitical context. How can our values be relevant and respected? How can we defend the rule of law and the legacy of the San Francisco Charter in a world where the use of force and breaches of international law have become a reality? Even among some of our traditional partners, at the edge of a new era, Europe holds a very special responsibility. We need to ensure that the new paradigm can still rely on the fundamental principles that provided the setting for peace and prosperity as never achieved before. We cannot risk losing what we have built. How do we build an updated and effective multilateralism? How can Europe remain a credible source of power when others are increasingly relying on coercive tools? The debate on whether pragmatic federalism can be applied to both external and domestic dimensions is already open for discussion in Europe. Enhanced cooperation and coordinated responses are within reach, and they are still effective. We cannot miss that opportunity. We may need new approaches to decision making, including a broader use of qualified majority voting in foreign relations, to ensure a credible European voice. Failing to build options to express the European voice means irrelevance. Or it means 27 foreign policies that may become cacophonous or contradictory, and that ultimately do not count. That is not sufficient to build the strength needed to be credible and to have an impact. We need to remain together. This could mean a broad majority being backed by individual Member States, as has been the case when contesting the US President's demands on Greenland. It could mean not objecting to a decision supported by almost all. But silence, or lack of position and action, is not an option. On the contrary, it could push Europe out of the global political arena, and with it our values, our democratic model and our balance. Do we need innovative ways to address the key priorities on the agenda, and to handle national interests and legacies that may be divisive? There are many questions open to debate. But there should be broad support for the main common lines and principles that lie at the roots of the European project. For instance, we may be innovative in designing fair proposals to reform the UN system or the Bretton Woods institutions. But we should never give up on multilateralism and its objectives, nor on financial stability and solidarity as foundations for ensuring sustainable development worldwide. For instance, we may be innovative in designing arrangements to achieve long lasting peace and prosperity. That includes security. But we should never remain silent when witnessing horrendous crimes against defenceless civilian populations, including children, no matter their religion, race or nationality. Power requires respect. And we Europeans have inherited a legacy from our parents and grandparents that is worth defending. So, coming back to Mario Draghi, we are all alone together. But nobody will take this defence on board if it is not us. The good thing is that we are not the only ones aiming for similar goals. And we still have the strength to build a credible movement and to connect the dots. We can still update the means and the consensus needed to defend democracy, prosperity and human dignity. It is not necessarily easy. But it is a must. It is our duty. We cannot give up on this essential and primary duty. And again, that is a field where human intelligence, critical thinking and long term thinking will never be substituted by any artificial machine. It demands strong ethics and knowledge, two features that the Politecnico di Torino and other smart education players help to build every day. So, thank you very much. We count on you. And do remember: it is our duty, and we can do it together. Thank you very much. SPEECH/26/1358
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