MEPs vote to increase FP6 budget for the last year of the programme

The European Parliament has debated the EU budget for 2006, and voted to restore much of the budget that was cut by the Council in July. Areas set to benefit include research, education, youth programmes and external policy. In its resolution, the Parliament states that it 'H...

The European Parliament has debated the EU budget for 2006, and voted to restore much of the budget that was cut by the Council in July. Areas set to benefit include research, education, youth programmes and external policy.

In its resolution, the Parliament states that it 'Had decided to increase budgetary commitments, in particular for the Lisbon and Göteborg strategy, for information policy and for external actions, in order to safeguard important EU actions in line with its previous resolutions on the 2006 budget and which will make a difference for EU citizens.'

MEPs wish to add 200 million euro in payment appropriations to a range of activities that impact upon the Lisbon strategy of making Europe's economy the most competitive in the world by 2010. The Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) will receive a boost to its budget if the Parliament's amendments are accepted.

The resolution 'Rejects the Council's attitude of indiscriminate reductions which runs contrary to pressing political priorities, most especially the need to match the ambitions for the renewed Lisbon strategy with something more than what is already available in 2005.' MEPs therefore urge the Council to 'agree a reinforcement of these priorities, as was done at the end of the last programming period'.

The Parliament resolution also declares the 2006 budget to be a bridge to a new programming period, stating that as such, it should anticipate the envisaged higher funding for areas such as research.

For such budget increases to become possible, Member States would however be obliged to increase their payments into the EU budget from 1.01 per cent of the EU's Gross National Income (GNI) to 1.04 per cent.

While the vote will have been welcomed by many in Europe's research community, not all are satisfied. Parliament reduced the budgetary allocation for security research, sparking concern from organisations such as ASD, the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe.

The resolution cuts the budget for the Preparatory Action for Security Research (PASR) from the 24 million euro proposed by the Commission to 15 million euro. 'Since this reduction follows a reduction of the same amount in the 2005 budget allocations, ASD is extremely concerned about the impact that the reduction of the budget will have on the quality of the future security programme and therefore the security of European citizens,' reads an ASD statement. The PASR represents a critical step towards the European Security Research Programme, the statement adds.