Common position on Fourth Framework Programme supplement
The common position on the financial supplement to the Fourth RTD Framework Programme was formally adopted by the Council of Ministers on 27 January 1997, following the agreement reached by Ministers at the Research Council on 5 December 1996. The agreement reached would provide an additional ECU 100 million for the remaining period of the Fourth Framework Programme, which will end on 31 December 1998. The additional funding would be much less than the ECU 700 million foreseen in the original 1994 Decision on the Programme, as the Commission's first proposal for additional funding fell when Finance Ministers could not agree to transfer funding, from agriculture to research, within the Community's budgetary framework. The ECU 100 million in additional funds would be allocated to six priorities (transmissible spongiform encephalopathies - following the mad cow disease crisis; aeronautics; educational multimedia; transport intermodality and interoperability; environment RTD/water; and land-mines), within the following specific RTD programmes: - Telematics Applications: ECU 15 million; - Information Technologies (ESPRIT): ECU 21 million); - Industrial and Materials Technologies (BRITE/EURAM): ECU 15 million; - Environment and Climate: ECU 7 million; - Biotechnology (BIOTECH): ECU 7.5 million; - Biomedicine and Health (BIOMED): ECU 16 million; - Agriculture and Fisheries (FAIR): ECU 11.5 million; - Transport: ECU 7 million. The common position will be transmitted to the European Parliament shortly for its second reading. The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy should discuss the common position during February, with the second reading by the full Parliament in April or May. If the Parliament votes to increase the additional funding, it is likely that the financial supplement would not be resolved until summer 1997 at the earliest. It should be noted that MEPs voted to allocate additional funding to research in the Community's 1997 budget, and this may be confirmed in the second reading on the Framework Programme supplement. In that event, it is probable that the conciliation committee, involving Parliament and the Council, would have to meet to settle the question of the financial supplement.