Brussels, 16/07/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 9 July, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a Council decision on multi-annual technical guidelines for the coal and steel research programme.
The budget for the coal and steel research fund programme stood on average at €57 million annually for the period 2003-2006 - 27.2% for coal research and 72.8% for steel research. The funding comes mainly from interest generated by the capital of around €1.6 billion which remained available in 2002 upon expiry of the European Coal and Steel Community. The financial and technical management of this research programme has been entrusted to a unit created to this end in 2003 within the Directorate General for Research. After running for three years, the management of the fund is effective and its performance can be compared to that of other DG Research activities, the Commission states in an explanatory statement to its proposal. Enlargement of the European Union to the new member states calls for the rules governing the composition of the consultative coal and steel committees to be amended. The proposal is to keep the maximum number of experts making up these advisory committees unchanged, as established by Decision 2003/78/EC, mainly in order not to make the unfolding and the cost of meetings difficult to manage. The notion of a minimum representative per member state concerned must therefore be abolished and replaced by that of having the broadest geographical representation possible. Furthermore, Estonia's accession treaty requires enlargement of the definition of the term “coal” to cover bituminous schist (Article 3 of the proposal for a decision). Also, some measures accompanying the fund (organisation of conferences and research grants) have been done away with as they are already covered by the 7th framework programme (specific “personnel” programme). It has been suggested that the research objectives for coal and steel be kept and that priority should be given to: - improving the competitive position of coal in the Community; - effectively protecting the environment, improving the use of coal as a clean energy source, reducing CO2 emissions linked to the use of coal and through the containing and storage of this greenhouse gas; - managing the external dependency on energy supplies; - cutting emissions, reducing energy consumption and the environmental impact of steel production; - preserving resources and the ecosystem during steel production; - and controlling and protecting the environment in and around steel production sites. In order to enhance complementarity between the framework programme and the research fund and/or to focus financing on selected themes, it is suggested that the Commission be given the possibility to launch calls for proposals relating to specific research in the context of these research objectives. These specific calls will be defined by taking into account work programmes to be published for the 7th framework programme as well as, where necessary, strategic agendas for the European Steel Technology Platform (ESTEP), Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power Plants Platform (ZEP), and Sustainable Minerals Resource Platform (SMR), etc. It has, for example, been suggested that the structure of admissible costs be kept as defined in the 2003/78/EC version of the technical guidelines, that is, the definition of categories of admissible costs and the use of a flat rate of financing in order to cover indirect costs (financing re-evaluated at 35% of the cost of eligible personnel). Simulations on the basis of research contracts signed since 2002 have shown that the proposed rise from 30 to 35% in the rate covers travelling costs that disappear from the list of categories of eligible costs. These simulations also show that the indirect costs calculated on the basis of 35% of eligible personnel costs are comparable to those which would be calculated by using the flat rate of 20% of total direct costs of those outside contract, as used for the research programmes financed by the 6th and 7th framework programmes. On the basis of experience gained over the first five years of the fund's existence, a more precise definition of the various categories of operating costs is put forward. Also, in order to promote the research proposals relating to pilot or demonstration projects, it is suggested that the maximum financial contribution be increased from 40 to 50% of the authorised costs. For the other actions, the maximum financial contributions remain unchanged. (oj)