Brussels, 13/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - On Monday the Competitiveness Council adopted its partial general approach on the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme for 2007-2013 (CIP), agreeing the non-budget elements of last spring's Commission draft programme, largely dedicated to SMEs and with a budget of 4,212 billion euro (see EUROPE 8923). Given that the budgetary elements of the CIP depend on the still on-going Financial perspectives 2007-2013 negotiations, the Twenty-Five reached agreement on the basis of a compromise, brokered by the Austrian Presidency, picking up the main thrust of the Commission proposal on general CIP tendencies which do not cover research or technological development but have to help reduce the gap between research and innovation and promote all forms of innovation, including eco-innovation. At the same time as promoting the competitiveness of companies, especially SMEs, the CIP has to speed up the implementation of a competitive and innovative information society and promote energy efficiency and new and renewable energy sources in all sectors including transport. The CIP is divided into three sub-programmes: firstly, the programme for innovation and entrepreneurship, to ease access to funding for SMEs; secondly, the strategic support programme for information technologies and communication; and thirdly, the intelligent energy programme, to encourage the use of new renewable energies. EFTA countries which are members of the EEA, candidate countries benefiting from a pre-accession strategy, the Western Balkan countries and other non-member states where agreements allow will be able to become part of the CIP. Prior to final agreement on the EU budget, allocations for specific CIP programmes remain those of the Commission's initial proposal, which set aside 2,631 billion euro for the programme for innovation and entrepreneurship, 801 million euro for the strategic support programme for ICT and 780 million for the intelligent energy programme.