Brussels, 07/12/2005 (Agence Europe) - At a conference held by the European Commission in Brussels on 28/29 November, politicians and industrialists discussed the future of collective security in the EU and touched on the role bioterrorism detection technology. Jorge Bento Silva, chief administrator at European Commission Directorate General for Justice, said the main aim of the conference was to assess progress in detection technology and see whether companies are prepared to work with the European Commission to boost security in the EU. This first public private conference in Europe was attended by representatives of the EU detection industry (like EADS, Thales and Smiths), representatives of twenty EU Member States and officials from European Commission DG Justice, Freedom and Security and DG Energy and Transport. Bento Silva said a true dialogue was required because EU companies in this sector are losing out in the EU security market to much more competitive US companies. EU industry sees the problem from a different angle. EU detection technology industry is turning towards the US market because the United States, unlike the EU, has a flexible legal system and a very generous subsidies scheme for security work, said a private sector representative. Another problem is the fact the granting of subsidies by the EU is dependent on the forming of a consortium of EU companies, which may sometimes discourage small companies from sharing their research with bigger companies for fear of seeing the bigger companies take advantage of their research. Bento Silva commented that although there were disagreements, the conference had already managed to agree on a common target, counter-terrorism and would be looking into setting up joint task forces.
In a paper published in July this year, the European Commission opened the door to public private partnerships in the explosives industry. Public private partnerships in bioterrorism detection may be made official when the European Commission publishes its paper on bioterrorism next year.