Brussels, 23/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Commission has decided to grant EUR 80 million to the National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in order to contribute to the upgrading of their current Internet infrastructure. This represents 40% of the funding of a project aimed at strengthening the high speed, high capacity Internet in Europe. The high output Internet will allow the interconnection of national research and education networks in the European Union and the other European countries involved in the project: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. The spokesperson for Commissioner Erkki Liikanen, reponsible for the Information Society, specified that this initiative was launched in the context of eEurope and comes under the action entitled "Faster Internet for researchers and students", intended to increase research potential and its impact on European economic performance. According to the Commission, the new world-class, multi-gigabit network will be fully operational early 2001 and will connect over 700,000 European researchers. It should also make research on Internet 2 develop, a new and faster technology, allowing the transmission of a larger volume of information.