Brussels, 15/06/2005 (Agence Europe) - On the eve of the European Council, whose decisions on financial perspectives will be decisive for the future of European scientific research, former European Commissioner and Belgian Socialist MEP, Philippe Busquin, has addressed an Open Letter to the Heads of State and Government. A substantial extract of the letter is included below:
“The Heads of State and Government, willing to limit the budget to a mere 1% of the European GDP and reluctant to tackle old taboos (e.g. the outdated British EU rebate, the conservative Common Agriculture Policy) might end up laying the European construction to rest, although critical for our future. As of today, the R&D expenditure of the European Union barely reaches 2% of its GDP while the USA and Japan can claim a 2.76% and 3.12% R&D intensity, respectively. Such other countries as China, India and South Korea could follow suit and take advantage of a massive R&D potential. The Heads of State and Government have acknowledged the 3 % objective at the Barcelona Summit in 2002. Yet, with the exception of the Scandinavian countries, necessary measures to reach this much-wanted target have yet to be taken. Not only is it important to increase the R&D budget, but also to allot the financial resources more effectively. The very foundations of the European Research Area were established in 2000: to fight against the fragmentation of R&D, to optimize the R&D efforts with an enhanced transborder cooperation between the best research teams, to give a better status to the researcher career, to stimulate the interest for sciences and to create public-private partnerships through technology platforms in the fields of aeronautics (Airbus), space (Ariane), microelectronics, chemistry, steel, etc. Europe will need no less than 600,000 researchers in a near future…This is an absolute necessity… Unfortunately, the current budget proposal from the Luxembourg Council Presidency drastically reduces the 2007-2013 budget portion allocated to R&D from € 73 bn to € 50 bn, thus terminating the ERC's groundbreaking approach and dooming Europe to a distressing status quo. Without the necessary funds, the ERC will most likely never be set up or will run on a limited budget without having the possibility of meeting its goals, one of them being to curb the brain drain of our most skilled researchers. Euroscepticism will be reinvigorated, nationalisms ("I want my money back") will be reinforced and the European demise will be inevitable…”