Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-11-14-Speech-3-050"
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"As regards priority 5, the agricultural research aspects linked to food safety will be strengthened, in keeping with a number of the amendments suggested by the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Fisheries. Mr Pietrasanta’s and Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl’s amendments will also be taken into account in priority 5: Food safety
Why not risk depriving these activities of resources? The reason is that such activities are of considerable significance. In particular, they concern research relevant to the reform of the common agricultural policy. This is one of the major aims of Community policy. It is important in itself and increasingly so in the context of enlargement. Also involved are the implementation of policy on fisheries and the epidemiological aspects of public health, security and justice. These are all issues which cannot be dealt with appropriately under the heading of other priorities. The latter are more specific and come under what could be described as more clearly targeted research programmes. This represents a field of action, an effort to support research and development areas related to community policies. Adequate funding must be made available. I also have in mind Mr Verheugen’s call for support for all policies relating to enlargement, notably in the area of life sciences.
With regard to ethics, we did consider the amendment adopted by the ITER committee in the report drawn up by Mr Caudron. We are quite prepared however, to consider the amendments tabled at plenary. This is indeed a sensitive issue. The text the Commission proposes to insert into the decision specifically excludes from Community funding research aimed at creating human embryos purely for research purposes or in order to create stem cells. This is in addition to excluding research into human reproductive cloning, and research aimed at modifying the human genetic heritage. As I understand them, these amendments are also intended to exclude the transfer of cell nuclei amongst other processes. I refer to the amendments tabled by Mr Nisticò, Mr Trakatellis and Mr Purvis.
I trust I am not trying your patience. I should like to make two last points. Firstly, coordination has not been given the importance it deserves. Mrs Maes, I do believe that the coordination of national programmes is a key element in the construction of a genuine European Research Area, and I mean national and regional programmes. You will be aware that we issued a communication on ‘regions and research’, and EUR 400 million will be allocated to it. This may be used to support coordination activities, particularly in a number of clearly identified areas to which several of Parliament’s amendments refer. I can tell you for instance that childhood diseases and diabetes are now included under the framework of coordination of national policies. I have in mind the amendment tabled by Mr Nisticò, Mr Fiori and Mr Bowis. The same applies to seismic risk, with Mr Caudron’s and Mr Nisticò’s amendments, to fossil fuels and maybe also to ecosites and Mr Piétrasanta’s amendment. I am not however sure that the latter will be adopted. Clearly, there is action with regard to coordination of national policies.
I shall now refer to management. The management of framework programmes has come in for criticism and rightly so. The Court of Auditors is one of these critics. In particular, it had criticised the complexity of management. We are therefore firmly committed to a single aim in this regard: to simplify management for the scientific community, and for small and medium sized enterprises. Simplifying, however, also means limiting constraints and accepting a degree of flexibility out of regard for public money and the observations made by the Court of Auditors. We shall therefore prepare the proposal. We have taken the initiative with the new instruments. In particular, the issue of rules of participation is very important and you will be called upon to determine them. I should say to Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl that we are currently engaged in a debate on these rules with the players in the scientific community, enterprises and Parliament. That is our next task.
In conclusion, I should like to thank Parliament. I believe an important task has been concluded. As a result, it will now be possible for us to move towards the European Research Area that I am sure we are all aiming to create. Thank you for your work and for your contribution.
Priority 6 will be restructured as suggested by Mr Caudron, Mr Lange, Mr Hyland and Mr van Velzen. There will be three distinct sections encompassing issues related to the environment, transport and energy. Renewable energy will, of course, be included in the chapter on energy. A number of specific aspects of various forms of renewable energy will be emphasised. The Committee on the Environment and the Committee on Transport also expressed themselves in favour of a change of this nature. The sustainable development priority will therefore be subdivided into three sections dealing with these three aspects.
Before turning to more general points, I should add that the Commission also accepts or takes into consideration a number of amendments concerning both content and general policy. By way of example I could refer to Mr Glante’s amendment on the involvement of the candidate countries, Mrs McNally’s amendment excluding research into weapons and Mr Linkohr’s amendment on research linked to security matters which could be dealt with under the title of research into emerging themes and in the framework of the Joint Research Centre. We also have small and medium sized enterprises very much in mind. Mr Rovsing and Mr Carraro quite rightly reminded us of their role this morning. Clearly, small and medium sized enterprises will have a specific role to play in the next framework programme.
As regards the instruments, the Commission broadly endorses the approach enshrined in Parliament’s amendments. The basic thought is indeed to make it possible for the more classical instruments currently in place to be used alongside the new, more integrating instruments for a specific period. That was in fact what Mrs McNally proposed. Hence the Commission’s suggestion in its proposal on the rules of involvement, to resort to specific targeted actions and coordination actions under the heading of the stairway of excellence envisaged by Mr Caudron, the rapporteur. The proposal will be in line with at least the spirit of this idea of a stairway of excellence. Nonetheless, it is essential for the new instruments to remain the main priority tools for implementing this part of the framework programme. Only through their structuring effect will a genuine European Research Area become a reality.
Concerning the Budget, I should like to thank the Parliament for having gritted its teeth and demonstrated budgetary realism by remaining within the limits of the Commission’s proposal. In real terms this represents a 17% increase as against the overall budget for the previous framework programme. I think I already mentioned how significant this is inasmuch as the figures proposed by the Commission were arrived at following a needs assessment and in the light of the financial perspective and the possibilities provided under heading 3 of the internal budget policies. We believe that the Member States will adopt this same approach at Council as it is a logical, coherent and reasonable way forward.
As for Parliament’s proposal to increase the global envelope by EUR 100 million, that is not a substantial additional amount. Nevertheless, we feel we should retain the decisions already taken, in order to avoid inter-institutional trading. The Commission therefore wishes to retain the initial global position of EUR 17.5 billion in the interests of interinstitutional consistency. We shall then have to consider how to deal with the fusion issue.
In connection with the latter, it would be wise to demonstrate flexibility when interpreting the principle of reserved use of EUR 200 million for ITER. All activities relating to ITER are, in fact, concerned, not simply with the construction of the machine. In this way it will be possible to maintain the potential for present and future research. It would also be wise to interpret fusion in an even more positive manner. I have taken Mr Linkohr’s image on board with pleasure. It is however the case that in the next twenty years very interesting research will be conducted also on materials and on how to effect magnetic confinement. This will be in addition to still more wide-ranging research, going beyond fusion and relevant to the development of new technologies in a whole range of other sectors. This therefore is the type of presentation we are aiming at. Furthermore, it is in line with what was voted for at the ITER Committee.
I should now like to say in this connection, that jointly with the Member States, the Commission will set up a working group charged with setting targets in the less distant future, taking 2020 as a guide. This is a long way off, but in a sense 2020 is also quite close. Such an initiative would bear considerable fruit too. Indeed, a number of Member States broadly supportive of the 2020 end date for material essential to fusion put just such a proposal to Council.
As for distribution of the framework programme budget allocation, the Commission will support the general direction of the guidelines proposed by Parliament. This follows almost inevitably from the Commission’s acceptance of the amendments to content. Clearly, if we accept amendments to content in certain areas we must, of course, fund them. When research extends to areas which were not anticipated at the outset, the budget must, of course, keep in step, otherwise it will fall to a critical level. Nonetheless, the scope of the adjustments we envisage is less extensive than what Parliament proposed. This is so as not to go beyond real needs insofar as they can be calculated, but also so as not to completely starve of resources the activities under the so-called eighth priority. Additional information is called for and we shall provide it."@en1
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