Brussels, 09/09/2004 (Agence Europe) - In its adoption of its last communication before Commissioner Philippe Busquin leaves to take up his seat at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Monday, the European Commission confirmed its guidelines with a view to the establishment of a specific programme to research into security, with an annual budget of 1 billion EUR, to start in 2007. Entitled "Security Research: The Next Steps", this communication is the Commission's response to the recommendations of a high-level group of twenty-seven top industry executives and European political decision-makers, which were published in March.
The communication also confirms the next stages, the development of a European research programme on security as part of the 7th EU framework programme on research (207-2010), concertation and co-operation with the concerned parties for a "European consultative committee for security research" to be created in 2004, the creation of an institutional framework to take account of Union policies in the field in question, i.e. the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), and the new European Defence Agency (EDA), and specific measures to award contracts and loans on security research.
Last March, the Commission launched a three-year "preparatory action" in the field of security research. With a budget of 15 million EUR for 2004 and 25 million EUR a year for 2005 and 2006, this action is a first stage towards a complete European security research programme from 2007. The first call for proposals was closed on 23 June, and over 170 eligible proposals were submitted. Participants were mostly companies in the aerospace, information and communication technology, systems integration and defence sectors. Twelve projects will be launched by December in fields such as situation awareness, protection of networked systems, protection against terrorism, crisis management and interoperability of control and communications systems. Two other calls for proposals will be published early in 2005 and 2006.
This autumn, the "European consultative committee for security research" comprising experts from user groups, business and research bodies will begin advising the EU on the content and implementation of the European security research programme. In 2005, the Commission will present a proposal on the content, financial aspects and the institution framework of this programme. Security research is already included in the financial perspectives of the Union proposed for 2007-2013.