Budget row threatens European research

Europe's multi-billion pound research programme could be delayed by up to a year because of a parliamentary stand-off over funding.

The European Parliament, backed by the European Commission, failed to reach an agreement with the Council of Ministers over the Fifth Framework Programme budget, during a crunch meeting in Brussels on Monday.

The parliament and commission, which want a Framework budget of Ecu 16.3 billion (Pounds 11.7 billion), rejected an offer by the council to increase its proposed budget from Ecu 14 billion to Ecu 14.3 billion.

Members of the parliament and council conciliation committee, called to end the stalemate, decided to exercise the option of giving themselves an extended deadline, until November 25, to arrive at a compromise.

If there is no budgetary settlement by then, Euro ministers will be forced to go back to negotiating the details of the programme, putting it back by a year.

Even if a solution is found by the November deadline, there could be a gap of up to two months between the Fourth and Fifth Framework Programmes, as formal approval for the Fifth Framework would not be possible until the council's February meeting.

Ministers have one last chance to avoid any kind of delay, at a meeting of the committee set for November 11. But European Parliament officials said so far there was "no trace of an agreement", and warned that the parliament was "unimpressed" by suggestions that it would have to give way to keep the programme on schedule.

A spokesman for the parliament said: "The situation is very difficult at the moment. The council should consider very carefully what it is doing."

Hopes for a settlement may also be dashed by a constitutional row that has erupted between the parliament and the council.

The parliament is worried it will be robbed of its budgetary powers by a clause built into a "common position" on the details of framework, agreed in February.

The clause, insisted upon by Spain, Portugal and Greece, creates a binding link between the Framework Programme's budget and the European Union's budget plans from the year 2000. It would mean the Framework budget could be changed without permission from the parliament. "This could prove to be a more difficult problem to resolve than the Framework budget itself," a parliament official said.