Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-04-19-Speech-4-609-000"
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"Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur and to say at this point that I am very happy, both as standing rapporteur for research in the committee and also on behalf of our group, that we were finally able to reach a result which enabled us to finance ITER for a while longer.
The whole process regarding the financing of ITER has been quite difficult for us. First of all it proved that the Council was not living up to all its obligations and even less to its political promises of actually putting emphasis on research. At the same time we saw a development whereby the Council wanted to actually cut money from Heading 1a, a heading where the current Framework Programme for Research is more or less 100% implemented. More than anything it is supporting the 2020 Strategy, etc.
As you know, there was a suggestion that money for ITER should be taken from this part of the budget. We refused to let this happen and were persistent and very united as a Parliament. The Committee on Budgets was also very firm on this. In the light of all this the outcome is fairly good, but at the same time I want to underline that this is not – at least from our group’s point of view – an ideal outcome. However, taking into account the discussion I do not think we could have achieved anything better.
It is easy to agree with previous speakers regarding the future. ITER is an important project and has huge potential. At the same time I think the past year has shown that we need to have a better view on how ITER is governed, because we should not end up in situations where a big project that affects taxpayers’ money and also affects other research funds, as we have seen with this solution, is so badly managed that we have to use solutions like this to save the project. This has not been handled well.
It also proves that in the next MFF we need a more solid and more ring-fenced solution for financing ITER so that we will not be here in five years or in three years doing the same thing we are doing tonight: having a report to transfer funds for the ITER project.
Another worrying factor that I might mention in this context is the fact that the Council was sleeping on this. We were able to reach a final agreement, and after that apparently some of the delegations in the Council still wanted to go back on the agreement. This is not a healthy development. I am happy that they understood that this was not a desirable outcome. In the end, the Council will apparently stick to this agreement, as will we.
I hope we can learn from this, particularly because Horizon 2020, which will be the eighth Framework Programme, needs all the money it can get. This will bring growth to Europe. Therefore in the future we should not have solutions which, practically speaking, mean that we have less money for certain research projects because others are badly governed.
I would like to thank the rapporteur and other colleagues for their good cooperation. Considering the circumstances, the outcome on this matter is very good."@en1
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