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Leading
legislation
We have just completed our committee work on the single most important
piece of legislation that will come our way in this Parliament. As
Chairman, I found myself running the process during the final stage of
what we call informal trialogue.
Informal
trialogue
The trialogue is between the European Commission who made the original
proposal, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (ie the Member
States) and the European Parliament, represented by MEPs on my
Industry, Research and Energy Committee.
Agreeing a
compromise
We describe it as “informal” is because we engage in this process
prior to Second or even First Reading with the objective of reaching
an agreed compromise early. A formal trialogue is otherwise known as
the conciliation stage between Second and Third Reading if Parliament
and Council cannot agree.
7th
Framework Programme
The legislation concerned is the 7th Framework Programme of
European Research for the period 2007-2013 with a budget of €53bn,
depending which year’s inflation adjusted value you use. At any rate
it is the third largest item of expenditure in the overall budget
after the two big ones of agriculture and regional funds. The
framework structure comprises four specific programmes.
Co-operation
covers collaborative transnational research in ten thematic areas,
taking the lion’s share of budget. Health; Food; Agriculture and
Fisheries and Biotechnology; Information and Communication
Technologies (ICT); Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies, Materials and
New Production Technologies; Energy; Environment (including climate
change); Transport (including aeronautics); Socio-economic Sciences
and the Humanities; Security; Space.
Ideas
covers basic research implemented by a new European Research Council (ERC)
with independent members drawn from the scientific and research
communities. This is the most significant new element of the 7th
Framework Programme and there are high hopes riding on how it works
out. Another new element which is intended to apply throughout the
programme is, quite simply, excellence. This may sound painfully
obvious but as a criterion for assessing bids for funding it is a
departure from, and refinement of, the previous approach of requiring
participants from 3 or 4 Member States which led to the emergence of
so-called alibi partners.
People
covers a range of actions and initiatives to encourage mobility of
researchers. And Capacities is about support for
research infrastructures encouraging small and medium sized
enterprises (SMEs) and international co-operation ie with countries
outside the EU.
Rules for
Participation
A crucial part of the legislation is the Financial Regulation or Rules
for Participation. As the title suggests this is about the guidelines
and rules covering applications, evaluations, financing and use of
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results. The RfP is much less widely known than the
7th Framework Programme yet in some ways it is even more important
because it deals with the simplicity or complication of actually
getting funding.
Simplifying the
process
Because one of the most frequently voiced criticisms of European
research programmes has been about how complicated the process is,
especially for smaller research entities, we were all very keen to try
to improve matters. We commissioned a special opinion from the Court
of Auditors with the dual aims of simplification with accountability.
Time will tell how successful we have been.
Playing a central
role
This was the first time I had been involved in an informal trialogue
in such a central role. At times it meant being both chairman of the
whole meeting and negotiator on behalf of my team of MEP rapporteurs
and shadows. The working language in these meetings was English and
because we did not have interpretation the freeflow of discussion was
made easier although we still had to be sure we ended with the same
understanding of wording and phraseology. Our two main rapporteurs
were Polish and Belgian with shadows from France, Germany, Luxembourg,
Italy, Spain and Sweden. The Presidency of the Council is presently
held by Finland while the Research Commissioner is from Slovenia. So
we had quite a mix.
Achievement
through negotiation
I don’t have enough space to go into much detail (possibly I have put
in too much already) but I would highlight one or two elements for
which we in the Parliament can claim credit as being achieved through
negotiation.
Significant
improvements
Perhaps the most significant is persuading the Council to agree to our
having co-decision procedure for the selection process and criteria
for members of the ERC as well as in determining the final legal
structure of it. We felt parliamentary scrutiny was important. We
also set a 5% cap on administrative expenditure within its budget.
Good news for
SMEs
Another improvement is in the introduction of a flat rate model for
participants unable to identify for certain their real indirect costs
of participation (ie overheads). For non-profit public bodies,
education establishments, research organisations and SMEs this should
provide simplicity, clarity and certainty. And for SMEs the new
participant guarantee fund should eliminate the need for expensive
bank guarantees, something I know has been a problem in the past.
And good news for
the South West
Finally a change which I hope will help part of the South West. I was
able to have some text reinstated which will give Westland the
opportunity to apply for funding for tiltrotor technology in the
Transport theme.
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