Brussels, 10/03/2004 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, presenting both of the Commission's communications of Tuesday on education and citizenship to the press (yesterday's EUROPE, p.12), Commissioner Viviane Reding said that for the time being, she did not wish to raise the budget to be allocated to future programmes. "I do not wish to talk euros now. The Commission wants to invest in knowledge, putting the necessary means into this (...). Yesterday, the European Parliament applauded it. It is now up to the Finance Ministers to decide whether they wish to invest in these programmes", she said. "Today, we are at 0.8% of Community budget. This is peanuts, even if we triple it. However, tripling the budget would be logical! We do not wish to take a euro away from agriculture, we just want more money for our programmes". The issue of funds to allocate to these programmes (1% or 1.15% or 1.24% of the budget, said Ms Reding) will be on the table of the Education/Culture Council of 26 May.
To encourage young people in the field of audiovisuals, Ms Reding is proposing a Erasmus for training young people in cinema.