EC hankers after more Framework research spending
1993; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 364; Issue: 6432 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1038/364004a0
ISSN1476-4687
Autores ResumoStrasbourg.Increased spending on research and development in Europe won general approval at last week's summit meeting in Copenhagen, which marked the end of Denmark's six-month presidency of the European Communities (EC).This view, prompted by a paper on economic renewal in the EC by the European Commission's president, Jacques Delors, has now been echoed by the European Parliament.A central feature of the Del ors plan is that the EC should invest ECU5 billion (US$6.l billion) a year on a European information infrastructure.The document, commissioned by the member governments, says that an efficient decentralized economy requires a sound system of information highways and that the system should be continuously developed and updated, at an estimated cost of ECU5-ECU8 billion a year.Member states have until I September to comment on the plan, so that a final document can be discussed by finance ministers under the chairmanship of Belgium, which now assumes the presidency of the EC.Decisions could then be taken at the next Community summit in December.Danish prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, reporting to the European Parliament immediately after the summit, said that heads of state had responded positively to the Delors plan, which also urged member states to raise spending on research, development and innovation from 2 per cent of gross national product to 3 per cent.Research was already on the agenda in Strasbourg, where the members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have been debating the plan to spend ECU 18.4 billion on the I 994-98 Fourth Framework Programme.Pending ratification of the Maastricht T reaty (which gives the parliament more influence on EC research policy), members complained that the EC's commitment to research still falls short of the target of6 per cent of their budget, agreed as long ago as 1985.Indeed, Rolf Linkohl (Social Democrat, Germany), who is rapporteur of the Energy, Research and Technology Committee, claimed that the proportion of the EC budget to be spent in the new framework programme is a reduction from 4 to 3. 9 per cent.The parliament also renewed its demand that renewable forms of energy should have the same priority as thermonuclear research, with more research on the environmental impact of waste disposal.Last week, it also endorsed a draft directive that, within ten years, 90 per cent of the 50 million tonnes of packaging waste produced in the EC each year will be recycled or incinerated to produce energy, a proposal unlikely to be backed by the Council of Ministers.
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