Busquin outlines scope of S&T cooperation agreement with Tunisia
Expanding the concept of the European Research Area (ERA) beyond the boundaries of the EU is the very key to its success, EU Commissioner for Research Philippe Busquin has said. Speaking at a meeting of the scientific community in Tunisia on 11 September, Mr Busquin said while the ERA can be seen as playing an instrumental role in achieving the objective set in June 2000 at the Lisbon European Council, of transforming Europe into the world's most competitive knowledge-based society by 2010, it should also be viewed in a much broader context. 'The ERA cannot become a fortress closed off from the rest of the world,' explained the Commissioner. 'On the contrary, opening the area to our neighbours and partner countries like Tunisia will enable us to forge our scientific and technical capacity, resources and results, benefiting not only Europe but our friends and neighbours.' Confident of the mutual benefits involved in carrying out collaborative scientific research, the EU recently signed scientific and technological cooperation agreements with Tunisia and Morocco, thus enabling increased participation of the two countries in the European research programmes, as well as the participation of European researchers in the research activities in North Africa. 'Primarily, this agreement is founded on the principles of mutual interest, reciprocity, non-discrimination and the equitable division of intellectual property rights, which are also the guiding principles of true scientific cooperation,' noted the Commissioner. Mr Busquin went on to outline the scope and some of the advantages of forming such cooperative agreements. In response to the concerns raised by Tunisian scientists with regard to the difficulty of participating in projects using the Sixth Framework Programme's new instruments, the Commissioner claimed that the exact purpose of the recent cooperation agreement is to facilitate better participation. 'It is not necessary to be a large research centre to contribute to these consortia,' reassured the Commissioner. Although the agreement should pave the way to increased scientific excellence for both regions, Mr Busquin said that more work still remains in order to advance the development of a 'true Euro-Mediterranean research space'. He suggested that a good starting point would be to examine ways of creating synergies between FP6 and MEDA, the Euro-Mediterranean political and socio-economic partnership.
Countries
Morocco, Tunisia