Mr President, in presenting the opinion of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, I want to draw attention to the failure of the Council to anticipate the enormous growth in the energy economy which is about to take place in Eastern Europe. This will be underpinned by the European Energy Charter Treaty which will be signed in Lisbon on 17 December. We have therefore tabled amendments to restore the provision for the support of the Charter and for energy planning within the Union.

Council has also failed to support the training of Eastern European scientists in the control of plutonium and fissile material. That has already been condemned by Parliament and we seek to reinstate the financial provision. With regard to the THERMIE II programme, it is proposed to restore this budget line. The programme is an important part of actions to improve energy efficiency. It was a condition of our agreement to the Fourth Framework Programme in research and the reasons for it have already been underlined by Commissioner Schmidhuber. Before leaving the energy sector, I want to refer to the restoration of the financial support for energy networks which are of particular importance for the less developed regions of the Community.

On the research sector my comments can be more general. The Fourth Framework Research Programme is not yet fully in place and therefore there is little scope for adjustment this year. But we want to draw attention to the Commission's failure to ensure adequate forward financial planning for the full implementation of that programme as agreed under the co-decision procedure.

Finally, as regards exploitation of Community R & D, last year Parliament called for action in this direction to be strengthened. We repeat that call this year and look to the Commission to be more responsive. I conclude by thanking the Committee on Budgets for the careful consideration it has given to the opinion of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.