Brussels, 28/09/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 28 September, the 27 EU ministers for research reached agreement on a work plan for public-private joint technology initiatives (JTIs). “The ministers reached quite a wide consensus on the form the JTIs should take - Community bodies,” said a diplomatic source, confirming that member states had committed themselves to finding a compromise in the month of November. The start of the four JTIs is planned for 2008. Ministers, however, refused to consider the status of the JTIs “as international organisations”, the same source added. Ministers also called for a clause limiting the life of JTIs to a maximum of ten years.
Apart from these horizontal aspects, several other points remain to be resolved, notably the mechanism for sharing the private sector votes in the formal decision-making process of the joint enterprises. The voting mechanism is likely to be considered for each initiative individually. The JTIs will be long-term public-private partnerships in specific research areas, bringing together private sector investment and European and national public funding. These large research projects will help economic growth and the quality of life in the EU. Their only current equivalent, Galileo, has been seriously delayed in its implementation. JTIs are a new funding instrument under the seventh EU research framework programme (FP7) for 2007-2013. In Council, the ministers considered the four JTI proposals so far submitted by the European Commission. Two provide for the direct involvement of member states: ARTEMIS on embedded computing systems, and EBIAC devoted to nanotechnology. The other JTIs are: IMI, an initiative on innovative medicines, and Clean Sky, on aeronautics. (bc)