Parliament votes on additional funding for research Framework Programmes
The European Parliament, meeting in Strasbourg on 18 June 1996, adopted its report on the amendment of the Fourth RTD Framework Programme and the Euratom Framework Programme. The proposed amendment to the programmes would increase the maximum overall funding for the remaining years (1997 and 1998) by ECU 700 million. In relation to the Commission's proposal for the Fourth Framework Programme, the Parliament has increased funding for the dissemination and optimization of results (Third Activity), at the expense of the specific RTD programmes. However, the full Parliament did not reduce the specific programmes' additional funding to the extent proposed by its Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy in its report of 30 May 1996. As regards the priorities for funding within the Fourth Framework Programme, the Parliament confirmed the Research Committee's approach of limiting priority areas but, following strong representations from the Parliament's Transport Committee, additional funding of ECU 45 million is to be allocated to a special project on transport interoperability and intermodality. Mrs. Edith Cresson, European Commissioner responsible for research policy, said that the Commission could accept some of the amendments, but not those which changed the overall funding, altered the balance between priorities, or added new objectives. The proposal will now be discussed by the Council of EU Research Ministers in Luxembourg on 26 June 1996. This meeting has already been put back one week, so that the European Council which takes place on 21 and 22 June can reach agreement on the reallocation of Community financial perspectives. The Commission's proposal for this involves moving surplus funding from the agriculture budget to fund research and the trans-European networks. It is possible therefore that Ministers will not be able to agree on extra funding, or may only agree on a much reduced amount. Agreement on additional funding must be reached by 30 June 1996, otherwise the proposal would lapse, under the terms of the original Decisions establishing the programmes.