ITRE Committee votes on amended Euratom FP7 budget

The EP's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) held a second round of voting on Euratom FP7 on 30 May. The second round of voting was restricted to budgetary amendments. In the case of Euratom FP7, there were only two amendments tabled - Compromise Amendments 2 & 3 (CA2 and CA”). The compromise amendments were tabled by the EPP-ED, PSE, ALDE and GUE groups.

CA 2 called for the global Euratom FP7 budget to be reduced to EUR 2751 million. The original EC Proposal was EUR 3092 million. This 11.02% reduction was proposed because of the overall reduction of the EU's budget in line with the financial perspectives that were recently agreed between the European Council, the EP and the EC. The EUR 2751 million figure is also in-line with what the EU Presidency (Austria) proposed at the Council. The EUR 341 million reduction "won" by the EP during the recent negotiations on the financial perspective was re-distributed within the general FP7 programme.

CA 3 dealt with the budgetary allocation to "fusion energy research", "fission and radiation protection" and "nuclear activities of the JRC" under Article 3. The break-down is as follows:

The Parliament's ITRE Committee adopted both CAs without any major opposition. However, it should be noted that when the CA 3 was under debate within the EPP-ED group (prior to the vote), there was major disagreement about how to redistribute the funds under Article 3. The group was split on the question of whether the funding for "fusion energy research" should be maintained - as proposed by the EC - or decreased even more than the amount proposed in CA 3. Because it was a compromise amendment, there was no possibility of having a split vote. The entire Euratom FP7 Draft Opinion was then adopted by the ITRE Committee as follows: 33 in favour, 4 against (the Greens) and one abstention.

However, since the vote, a new amendment has already been tabled by MEPs who were unhappy with the redistribution of funds under Article 3. This is how the new amendment redistributes the funds:

Essentially, the new proposed amendment redistributes funding between "nuclear fission and radiation protection" and "nuclear activities of the JRC". In order for the amendment to be considered at the next plenary (14 June), it needs the support of a political group, e.g. the EPP-ED group or at least 32 MEP signatures. As things stand at the moment, the amendment already has more than the 32 signatures required for it to be tabled at the Plenary. Of course, the more signatures there are the better. FORATOM’s Secretariat will continue to seek support from key MEPs across the political spectrum in order to gain the necessary support for a successful vote in the Plenary on 14 June. It is doubtful if there is enough support within the EPP-ED group to have the amendment tabled by the group as a whole. However, FORATOM’s Secretariat will also continue to lobby in parallel to achieve this. Another alternative would be to get the EPP-ED and PSE groups to hold a "free-vote" on the amendment, i.e. MEPs would be free to vote whichever way they want and not have to follow officially party lines. The deadline for tabling amendments for the mid-June plenary is 7 June.

In parallel to the debate in the EP, the Council has also been debating how to distribute funds under Euratom FP7. On 30 May, Austria blocked an EU resolution on 2007-13 nuclear research spending, insisting that the money for nuclear fission be exclusively used for safety and related fields. In fact, Austria is opposed to the reduction of the JRC's budget allocation for activities related to Generation IV (Austria wants to limit JRC's contribution to GEN IV to safety and security R&D alone). They also want to split the "fission and radiation protection" budget in order to get a dedicated budget for radiation protection. However, Austria is apparently willing to give up the latter demand if a solution is found on JRC/GEN IV. The Council reached an acceptable compromise on 29 May, but then decided to reject its own compromise. Austria's demand met with resistance from other Member States, particularly the United Kingdom. There is now considerable pressure for a solution is found by the end of the Austrian Presidency.

Although the EP does not have co-decision power with regard to Euratom FP7, i.e. the Council does not have to consider the EP’s Opinion, the EP can bring considerable political influence to bear, which just might help break the current deadlock within the Council.

For more information on this file, contact Hans Korteweg: hans.korteweg@euronuclear.org