Regarding the "VOICE OF TIBET - STRENGHTENING THE TIBETAN CIVIL SOCIETY"- application initially forwarded to DG VIII on 4 October 1996

A joint application was addressed to the European Commission, DG VIII - under Human Rights heading, by the Spanish organisation Comunica Press, S.A., Italian Radio Radicale and The Foundation Voice of Tibet. The three main activities sought funded was:

a) Running and developing the Voice of Tibet short wave Tibetan radio project,

b) An information campaign on Tibet,

c) Put information and VOT programmes on Internet through a Real Audio service.

The application and project, which was to be handled by Directorate Generale VIII in October 1996, was presented in a meeting with Mrs.

Mosca in September 1996. The applying organisations were informed in December 1996 that the handling was postponed, and that a "fact finding mission" was going to India, Nepal and Tibet in January 1997 to look into all the Tibet related projects before the final handling could take place.

The application were then to be handled in April 1997, but in May it was again decided to postpone the handling until September 1997.

An updated application was prepared and sent to DG VIII in July 1997.

In August 1997 Mr. Jose Zarzoso, Head of Section at DG VIII replied: "I acknowledge receipt of you application of July 1997 submitting a financial request for the following project: "Voice of Tibet". This application will receive the following no: IN/153/97. It will be examined as soon as possible and I shall of course informe you of the outcome of this initial appraisal."

It was informed that the application would be handled in September or October 1997, and that it was "more than a fair chance of approval" as the reports on the VOT project were very positive.

Around 80 EU MPs signed support letters for the VOT project and the application and addressed them to Mr. Jacques Santer and Mr. Leon Brittan.

In November 1997 the DG VIII again informed that the handling of the application was postponed until January 1998.

In February 1998 it was informed by the DG VIII that the final handling of the application would take place, but two days before the set date it was informed that the application would be sent to DG I B for a final handling there. Mrs. Isabelle Lorenco de Faria at DG VIII informed that the application was handed over to Mr. Ponitt, together with an update from DG VIII on the project and the history of the handling of the application.

Since then there has been no confirmation from DG I B either on whether the application is received or when it will be handled.

As the project is considered very important for the Tibetans, and as the application is of crucial importance for the further running and development of the project, we are now addressing the DG I B for information on the handling of the "Voice of Tibet" application.