NO AGREEMENT (YET) IN CONCILIATION PROCEDURE
ON FIFTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME FOR RESEARCH
At its second meeting on Monday 12th October 1998, the EP and Council
Conciliation Comittee failed to reach agreement on the 5th Framework
Research Programme. A third conciliation meeting will be held on 10th
November 1998. The Austrian President-in-Office Casper Einem told the EP
delegation that the Council was still not able to change its compromise
proposal of an overall amount of ECU/EURO 14,300 million for the programme.
The EP, supported by the European Commission, officially maintained its
amendment for an overall amount of ECU/EURO 16,300 million but held out the
possibility of flexability if the Council could also improve its offer.
At the end of a long series of negotiations in Council's Justis Lupius
building, the chairman of the EP delegation, vice-president Renzo Imbeni,
demanded that Council come forward with serious proposals on the overall
amount and on the so-called guillotine clause before the 10th of November.
The guillotine clause was another matter of disagreement between the two
institutions. The members of the EP delegation felt that this clause runs
counter the Treaty and therefor should be withdrawn. During the meeting it
presented a new text designed to ensure the Parliament's role, under
codecision, in any revision of the programme before the end of 1999.
The guillotine clause in art. 2 and 3 of the common position creates a
binding link between the framework research programme and the new financial
perspective which is due to enter its force after 1999. This link was the
condition for the support of some member states for the common position. In
amendment 9 Parliament had removed the key element of this link with the new
financial perspective. By deleting the guillotine clause, the EP rejected
the hypothesis of unilateral suspension by the Council of the programme's
implementation.
In art. 2 of its common positon the Council had to split the framework
programme and its overall budget in two: an amount for the period 98-99, and
an amount for the period 00-02. This period will come under a new financial
perspective. The second amount will only be confirmed under two conditions:
a) if the new financial perspective covering that period indicates the share
of expenditure available for research and b) if the share of expenditure
earmarked for research is consistent with the financial perspective.
The further procedure: the Conciliation Committee now should reach an
agreement before 11th November 1998, buth both delegations agreed to a two
week extension of this deadline until 25th November 1998.
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