Research policy constitutes one of the key elements of Community action to strengthen the competitiveness of European industry and to enable the Community to occupy a central position at international level in respect in particular of co-operation with Central European Countries and with the Third World. For this good reason the Commission makes research policy financing one of the priorities of Delors II Package and considers this part of its proposal as the inevitable development of Community action independently of the ratification of the Treaty of Maastricht. Everyone knows that national governments have reacted to the Commission proposals in the way of "twelve stingy ladies", that the postponement of the financial decision to 1993 (for the 1994 budget) could cancel the commitments subscribed towards internal and external solidarity and that the European Parliament will be more than willing to reject the draft budget for 1993 if in it the Council refuses to take account of the financial consequences of

the Delors II Package. In the following pages you will find an exhaustive panoramic sweep of the European research situation. We seek here only to sound the alarm to the effect that the British Presidency, with the support of other governments, has first of all buried Delors II Package under an avalange of questions and that from this avalange nothing significant will survive, if the European Council in Edinburgh accepts the Presidency's draft conclusions particularly on the point concerning the elimination of any reference to the competitiveness of European industry and the new approach to the 4th Framework Programme on research. There is no longer any doubt that the "British flavour" is not appropriate to the furthering of European construction.