Brussels, 06/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 4 October, the European Parliament budgets committee adopted a draft budget for 2011, shaving €47 million off the funding for the ITER experimental nuclear fusion reactor. The draft text put to MEPs made provision for EU funding of €351 million for ITER, but this was finally reduced to €304 million after parliamentarians voted. “Support for this scientific mirage and financial black hole is beginning to disintegrate,” said French Green MEPs Yannick Jadot and Michèle Rivasi. “The European Commission is now caught between a rock and a hard place, with the Council supporting ITER but not wanting to pay for it, and the Parliament which does not want to impose further spending at a time of budgetary crisis and the widespread scepticism over the quality and interest of the scheme,” they said. Over the last few years, the cost of this ITER energy project has more than doubled, from €6 billion to €16 billion. Europe, which is picking up 45% of the bill, has also seen its contribution rise to €7.2 billion, with €1.4 billion of that for 2012 and 2013. At the end of July, the European Commission proposed to divert €460 million, initially allocated to the 7th research framework programme, to ITER. (B.C./transl.rt)