Luxembourg, 31/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - Speaking to the press on Tuesday evening in Luxembourg, Commissioner Philippe Busquin stressed the importance of the Framework Programme for Research and Development (FPRD) and recalled its financial (third Commission budget in volume) and strategic importance. He also welcomed the "significant step" forward made by the Research Council, which reached consensus on the main lines of the future EU research programme (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.8). He said the "change has been broadly accepted", and welcomed the direction taken in favour of the Commission's concentration and integration strategy. While recognising that the Member States and the MEPs are showing proof of conservatism by refusing to go as far as he had proposed, he was delighted that three new instruments had been accepted (integrated projects, excellency networks and joint programmes under Article 169). This should contribute to reducing the bureaucratic nature and the length of procedures while fostering greater efficiency in Community support to emerging research or in support for EU policies. The Council President, François-Xavier de Donnea, explained that a majority had been reached on two aspects of the Euratom programme: - a large majority urged in favour of research geared as a priority to reactors producing less waste; - and regarding fusion, the ministers hoped for integrated projects geared to operational results.
In addition to budgetary breakdown, a number of details have still to be clarified, including the place afforded to the GEANT network (high speed and high output). Some ministers expressed the wish for the network's funding to come from the budget earmarked for infrastructures, whereas Portuguese Minister José Gago (and the EP's industry committee) felt it should be financed from the information society budget. The issue is an important one in so far as the Parliament and the Council are not ready to grant major funding to infrastructures that they consider should be financed by Member States, while research workers hope the EU will intervene. Considering that the amount envisaged by the parliamentary committee (EUR 350 million) is excessive, Mr Busquin stressed that a mixed solution could be found, in so far as the progress to be made concerning GRIDs would be covered by the information society budget, and infrastructure work strictly speaking could be financed from the "infrastructure" budget. Except for Finnish Minister Sinikka Mönkäre, the Council members did not really insist on the participation of SMEs, unlike the EP committee which had hoped that this share would establish itself at 15% for all actions financed by the framework programme. The principle of the increased participation by SMEs appears in the Commission proposal, recalled Mr de Donnea, while acknowledging the inconveniences of fixing a figure that could prevent completion of the projects not reaching this threshold and would block others that exceeded it. Two Ministers, Roger-Gérard Schwartzenberg from France and British Lord Sainsbury of Turville, went much further along the road to change, urging for the margin of flexibility (the allocation for "anticipation of EU needs") and the exclusive and priority use of new instruments, as the Commission had proposed.