Parliament makes progress with legislation for the Fifth Framework Programme
The legislation to set up the Fifth Framework Programme last week cleared another hurdle in the European Parliament. Having already reached agreement with the Council on the overarching legislation for the programme, the Parliament last week moved on to deal with the specific programmes within the new programme. The Parliament's Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy adopted nine reports on the specific programmes at its meeting on 24-25 November. As a result, the way is now clear for the Parliament to approve the legislation for both the overarching programme and the specific programmes at its plenary meeting in the week beginning 14 December. The reports adopted by the committee include over 200 amendments to the proposed programmes, including a Commission proposal to divide the previous four-year budget allocation into one year followed by three years. The first year's money is expected to be approved later this year, allowing implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme to get underway early next year. However the second tranche of money will only become available to the Commission to spend after agreement at a Council meeting in the second half of next year. The proposed budgets (in ecus) for the specific programmes are now: EC PROGRAMME Quality of Life 553m in 1999, 1,860m in 2000-2002 Information Society 857m, 2,743m Competitive growth 646m, 2,059m Ecosystem (environment) 223m, 860m Ecosystem (energy) 223m, 819m International cooperation 78m, 397m Innovation and SMEs 78m, 285m Human potential 293m, 987m Joint Research Centre 189m, 550m EURATOM PROGRAMME Ecosystem 238.2m 740.8m Joint Research Centre 71.8m 209.2m. Other amendments adopted by the committee may have little impact on the final shape of the programmes since the Council has a free hand to accept or reject them.