EU set to agree €50bn research programme

MEPs have broadly backed European commission proposals for a new €50bn research programme, despite strong disagreement on stem cell research.

Speaking during the plenary debate in Strasbourg on Tuesday, parliament’s rapporteur on the seventh research framework programme, Jerzy Buzek, said that, despite the seven year programme’s reduced budget, Europe’s researchers and businesses were eagerly awaiting the programme’s launch.

“I hope that the speed with which we have worked so far on the seventh framework programme will be sustained and that it will come into force on January 1 2007,” said Buzek.

“European scientists and industry are looking forward to the successful start of the programme. We all in the EU are waiting for the success of the Lisbon strategy.”

MEPs will vote on Buzek’s report on Thursday. The new programme will see the introduction of a new European research council, a greater focus on the research needs of Europe’s small businesses and on energy related research.

However, MEPs continue to be split over the thorny issue of embryonic stem cell research. 

Buzek said he was hopeful that a compromise agreement on stem cell funding could be reached by the parliament’s political groups in time for the vote on Thursday.

Applications for EU money to fund stem cell research are currently dealt with on a case-by-case basis by the European commission, after EU wide guidelines were blocked by Germany, Italy, Portugal, Austria and Luxembourg in 2003.

Berlin was, and still is, concerned that it will end up indirectly paying for research in other countries through the research framework programmes.

German Green MEP Hiltrud Breyer said that Thursday’s vote would be a test of whether the EU was a “community of values”.

“If embryonic stem cells become a commodity, them we are on a downhill slope,” said Breyer.

Former Finnish environment minister Satu Hassi said it was wrong to ask member states to fund research that they believed was immoral. 

British centre right MEP John Purvis sympathised with deputies deeply held beliefs, but said that Christianity was not incompatible with stem cell research.

Other MEPs argued that stem cell research was needed to develop new cures for diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s, and that Europe would end up falling behind on cutting edge technologies.

“What the EU does not do today, the US and Japan will do tomorrow,” said centre right MEP Francoise Grossetete.

Former research commissioner Philippe Busquin backed the need for a compromise amendment on stem cells while reminding opponents that the financial support for this research activity represented only a 1000th of FP7’s total funding budget.

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