Luxembourg, 18/04/2005 (Agence Europe) - Research ministers lengthily discussed the Commission proposals on Monday evening in Luxembourg. Discussions initially took place during diner on Sunday evening then during the formal session of the Council of the EU. Discussions involved the proposals for the research and development framework programme. A first exchange of views will be followed on 7 June by an orientation debate. If these discussions are far from having smoothed out all the difficulties the FP7 was due to encounter over coming months, Commissioner Janez Pötocnik was able to leave the meeting satisfied and spoke of the ministers' positive welcome, particularly for the architecture of the new framework programme. Few ministers mentioned the financial dimension in the package proposed by the Commission and those that did generally supported the idea of a doubling funding for the framework programme. The only false notes came from the United Kingdom and Germany, whose research ministers were not present and who affirmed that this increase should not compromise respect for the overall ceiling of 1% of GNP across the Community which these two countries intended to impose for limiting European expenditure.
The architecture of the FP7 gained satisfaction, as demonstrated by François D'Aubert from France, Mariano Gago from ¨Portugal, who spoke of a “very clear structure” and Elisabeth Gehrer from Austria, who welcomed the continuity in which the nine priority themes were included in collaborative research. This distribution did not please everybody. This is what the French minister explained when he said that the four themes came from the “strategic priorities for Europe's sovereignty”: security, energy, the area and aeronautics. Four other themes from the previous research and development framework programmes should benefit from such as “continuity of Community support”: health, information society and telecommunications technology, environment, sustainable development and surface transport. Three themes are expected to be “profoundly reorientated” to increase their effectiveness: agriculture and biotechnology, nano-technology, new materials and procedures and human and social sciences. A distribution which introduces the embryo of future proposals for reorganising priorities and amending the break down of funding. The Polish minister also sought to underline the efforts made for agriculture, biotechnology and social sciences, while the Portuguese minister pointed to the importance of marine research for his country.
Ministers also confirmed their support for the setting up of the European Research Council. Those speaking in this sense were Marie-Dominique Simonet from Belgium, who welcomed the “opening up to fundamental research”; François D'Aubert, Maria Jesus Sansegundo, who though that the Research Council should respond to criteria of autonomy, rigour and transparency and Mariano Gago. Letizia Moratti from Italy also supported the European Research Council but highlighted the need to avoid excessive bureaucratic operational costs. Dutch minister, Maria van der Hoeven wanted the Council and Parliament to define the European Research Council's work programme, while the later had been imagined by the researchers for supporting a bottom up approach and the development of fundamental research independent of political and industrial priorities that are already served in the framework programme.
Accompanying the concerns were the very favourable comments for simplifying transparency, which the Commission had made in the new framework programme and which Commissioner Potocnik is committed to continuing. Many ministers appealed for better involvement of SMEs and some, like Ms Sansegundo and Ms Moratti insisted on keeping 15% for funding collaborative research projects for SMEs. Following on from the Polish minister Michal Kleiber, many contributions highlighted mobility of youth access in Marie Curie initiatives. Kleiber also wanted greater effort in support of infrastructure.
During dinner, Commissioner Potocnik presented ministers with the results from the recent meeting he had in Tokyo on the international thermo-nuclear reactor ITER. At the end of this dinner, the Luxembourg presidency distributed the conclusions in which the Council “invites the Commission to speed up all necessary preparations for concluding the international agreement so that it can be finalised under the Luxembourg presidency”. It also called on the Commission to “intensify contacts with partners in order to reach with a maximum number of partners, in the anticipated deadline, a solution by the Six, as sought by the Council”.