Community activities in research and technological development are not limited to the 12 Member States. Cooperation with other regions of the world constitute an important aspect, and is becoming increasingly so with each passing day. The first countries to be concerned are the Community's closest neighbours. With the entry into force of the European Economic Area agreement on January 1993, companies and laboratories from EFTA countries will participate in almost all Community programmes in the same conditions as Community partners. These countries have, for several years now, been associated with the Community's research effort. Most were formally involved in several programmes of the Second Framework Programme, while organizations from all EFTA countries can participate up to the 1st January 1993 in the programmes of the Third Framework Programme on the basis of the "project by project" formula. Countries from COST (European Scientific and Technical Cooperation) - recently enlarged to include Poland, Cze

choslovakia and Poland - have access to significant sections of many programmes. By any standards, the Community's scientific and technological cooperation with Central and Eastern European countries is in full bloom. 55 million ECUs have gone into this cooperation in 1992. 40 million ECUs are aimed at financing mobility scholarships from Eastern European countries to the West and vice versa, developing pan-European scientific networks, carrying out joint research projects and co-organizing conferences and seminars. 10 million ECUs will help organizations from these countries to participate in 5 programmes of the Framework Programme (1990 - 1994) which are open to them (Environment, Medical Research, Non-nuclear Energy, Nuclear Fission Safety, Human Capital and Mobility), while the remaining 5 million ECUs will help them to participate in COST actions. These actions are already accessible to the three countries mentioned above, as well as to Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania and Romania, and cover all

exact, natural, economic and management sciences as well as social and human sciences. Scientific and technological cooperation with the independent States of the former Soviet Union is also flourishing. The Community is in the process of implementing, along with Russia, Byelorussia and the Ukraine, a research programme on the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Together with Russia, the United States and Japan, the Community is working to set up an International Centre for Science and Technology in Moscow, aimed at re-directing Russian scientists and engineers, who were until recently employed in military activities, towards civil projects. Alongside this initiative, the Community decided to create an International Association for the Promotion of Cooperation between Scientists of the former Soviet Union, in order to prevent a mass exodus of former Soviet Union researchers towards other parts of the world and thereby maintaining on site a core of quality research. Since 1985, the Commission

has been associated with the multilateral initiative EUREKA and, in this context, contributes to the management and financing of projects. In one way or another, the Commission participates in 68 projects and finances over 21, directly (for example JESSI in microelectronics or the HDTV project) and indirectly, through the activities of the Joint Research Centre (several large projects in the environmental field such as EUROTRAC and EUROENVIRON, or in industrial safety - such as FORMENTOR). In order to explore the prospects for scientific and technological cooperation between the Community and the Mediterranean countries, a pilot activity called the AVICENNE programme, was launched in 1992 . The programme is open to all Southern Mediterranean countries and comprises two main themes: health and the environment. The Community cooperates with Third World Countries through the "Science and Technology for Development" Programme. The programme's main aim is to develop scientific cooperation between different countr

ies of the South and focuses on the problems of agriculture, health and nutrition. Several specific cooperation actions (complementing this initiative) are conducted with some Latin American, Asian and Mediterranean countries. So far, these actions have been executed outside the Framework Programmes. They will be integrated into the next one. The Community also cooperates with industrialized third countries in areas of mutual interest. This applies particularly to the United States. An EC/US joint consultative group on Science and Technology was established in 1990. Within this context a Task Force in the field of Biotechnology was set up. In addition, joint work has begun on modelling the interactions of energy, the environment and the economy. Negotiations are under way for the creation of an EC/Japan forum. On an international level, the EC is associated with the United States, Japan and Russia in the ITER experimental thermonuclear reactor project. The Community is also involved in two initiatives laun

ched by Japan, the IMS (Intelligent Manufacturing System) project and the Human Frontier international programme in the field of advanced biology. Certain parts of the Community's research programmes on medicine (AIDS research) and on the environment (study of issues related to "Global Change") are open to organisations from countries all over the world. An essential aspect of the Community's research policy in these areas is to incorporate the work of European laboratories in major international programmes.