Brussels, 11/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - During a meeting on Thursday in Brussels, Philippe Busquin, European Research Commissioner, and Ms Toyama, Japanese Education, Sports and Science Minister, decided to open exploratory discussions with a view to an eventual agreement on scientific and technological cooperation between the EU and Japan.
Mr Busquin and Ms Toyama took stock of the situation of EU and Japanese scientific policies as well as of the current state of cooperation in the context of the action plan adopted at the EU-Japan Summit on 8 December last. Scientific cooperation between the parties has developed over the years in fields as varied as the environment, seismic threat, nuclear fusion and information technologies. The action plan provides for a qualitative leap in cooperation especially for themes linked to the fight against poverty, including its consequences in terms of infectious diseases such as AIDs or malaria, sustainable economic and social development - with a reference to the Johannesburg summit, - or the new challenges such as biotechnology, which opens up new horizons but also raises ethical issues (cloning, research on stem cells, post-genome research, etc.). Mr Busquin and Ms Toyama felt that, in order to carry out this ambitious cooperation successfully, it was useful to provide for new means, including institutional means.