Parliament urges more research into mine detection
A report by MEP Emma Bonino on the Commission's proposal for a regulation on action against anti-personnel landmines was adopted by the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee on 10 October. The report underlines the scale of the problem, and highlights the importance of stepping up scientific research with the aim of developing technologies to facilitate mine detection and identify affected areas more accurately. The committee called for 200 million euro to be made available for the period 2000 - 2006 to finance implementation of the regulation, although this budget line should not be used to pay for framework programmes for the research and development of mine action technology carried out under the heading of humanitarian action. This will continue to be funded from the budget lines specifically provided for those purposes.