Environmental Technologies and Eco-innovation in the Czech ...

On the one hand, the ETAP reflects the requirements of the environmental policy
anchored in the 6 th EAP and on the other hand, it refers to a general concept of
sustainable development and on the Lisbon Strategy 6 .
ETAP aims at using all available potential of environmental technologies to
mitigate the pressure on natural resources, to improve the quality of life of
Europeans and to stimulate economic growth.
The main goal of the ETAP is, consequently, to remove obstacles for development
and to introduce environmental technologies. One of the crucial ways to reach
this goal is to support eco-innovations, including supporting the access to small
and medium-sized innovative enterprises towards venture capital. The ETAP imposes
requirements on the EU member states with the goal of increasing the support of
eco-innovations, among other measures, by national programmes generally aimed at
supporting research and development or by other (e.g. financial) tools.
The general ETAP priorities are a Shift from research towards the market, an
Improvement in market conditions and a Global activity. To fulfil them, the ETAP
contains 28 tasks with deadlines, of which member countries are explicitly required to
complete 19.
The ETAP also contains examples of “good practice” in integrated policy, a partnership
between the private and public sectors in the area of research and development, the
spreading of information, demonstration projects and green public procurement.
The ETAP Implementation Report for 2004 requires that member states prepare
national programmes for supporting environmental technologies.
In recent years, the relevance of the ETAP has been strengthened by the EU
ambitions in the mitigation of the climate change impact by the package of climate
and energy measures 7 .
In addition to ETAP, another important tool for supporting the development of
environmental technologies and eco-innovations is the 7 th Framework Programme for
Research and Technological Development for 2007–2013 and activities supporting
the partnership of the public sector, namely the Joint Technology Initiatives and
European Technology Platforms. More or less explicitly declared support for ecoinnovations
is also included in many other EU programmes, e.g. the Eco-Innovations
programme of the European Union.
6 Lisbon Strategy – the main document for the social and economic modernization of the EU and for the restoration of the
environment approved by the European Council in March 2000
7 the package of climate and energy measures – a set of measures proposed by the European Commission for the area of energy
and climate protection at the beginning of 2008