Press MEPs say Framework budget should double (Research Europe Magazine)

News | 08-04-2011

Six right-wing MEPs have called for a budget increase for Framework 7's successor to €100 billion, up from FP7's €53.3bn in 2007-2013.

One of the signatories, Portuguese MEP and former science minister Maria Da Graça Carvalho, says that the Framework Programme needs to change to match the EU's changed priorities, as it was designed before the financial crisis, and before areas such as energy and climate change reached the top of the agenda.

The plea was submitted by six MEPs from the European People's Party, the largest group in the European parliament, as a suggested amendment to the draft report "Investing in the future: a new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for a competitive, sustainable and inclusive Europe".

The report was drawn by the special parliamentary committee on the policy challenges and budgetary resources. This committee was set up in July last year with a one-year mandate to define the Parliament's priorities and resource allocation for the next financial period after 2014.

The draft report mentions that the framework programme needs a "significant" budget increase, without indicating numbers. It adds that "this increase of funds must be coupled with a more result-oriented, performance-driven approach and with a radical simplification of funding procedures."

Maria Da Graça Carvalho is hoping that the new FP8 budget will eventually rise to €70 bn. "It will be a compromise because people within the Parliament, Commission and Council also want an increase in other policy areas," she told Science Business.net.

An MEP aide involved in the discussion told Research Europe that the amendments would be discussed in May and the final report should be adopted in early June.

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