Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I should like to express my thanks to the Commissioner and his cabinet, to the representatives of the European Commission, the Spanish Presidency, the secretariat of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, the consultants, the shadow rapporteurs and all those who have been involved in the preparations for this report. In the final analysis, this is about the specific programmes for research, technological development and integration and reinforcement of the European Research Area. Mr President, I think we can only say that thanks to fruitful cooperation in this House – this is also true of the Caudron report – the European Parliament can be satisfied with the results which will be voted on tomorrow. As I have said before, we are building on the successful work of Mr Caudron. Accordingly, we have adopted the structure and the appropriations of the Sixth Framework Programme as they are in the specific programmes, without making any changes. In that way, we are actually making history. For the first time, as far as I know, we are therefore voting twice in plenary about more or less the same amendments. Tomorrow, we will be voting again on the amendments which we had discussed before and adopted in the framework of the Caudron report and which we, in informal trilogue with the Council and Commission, have decided to transfer to the specific programmes. This seems to me to be an historic event. What are, in fact, the items of the specific programme that have been added since Mr Caudron’s Sixth Framework Programme? Needless to say, I will not enter into each and every detail, but simply allow me to mention a few points that are very close to my heart. I will naturally begin with bio-science. We were right, in my view, to focus mainly on cancer research, among other things. We want European support for fundamental and experimental cancer research that is centred on issues related to a much more effective diagnosis at an earlier stage, for this is ultimately the basis for patient survival. We naturally also want more support for preventive measures. Last week, we held a discussion with a number of very prominent cancer specialists, and the word ‘prevention’ was very much on everyone’s lips. I believe that we can make an important contribution to this by means of the Sixth Framework Programme. Furthermore, we also naturally want a much faster transfer of the results between experimental work and what ultimately benefits the patient, and we refer to this with an unusual word, namely ‘translational research’. This is what it is all about. We also support new approaches in the case of cardio-vascular diseases and diabetes, however, with the specific aim to try to establish a link between research in the field of the human genome and the application of new technologies and new research methods. In my view, we can make a lot of headway with this new approach of genetic engineering etc. We are, however, also looking into other developments. We are, for example, looking into how nanotechnology can be used in order to treat heart attacks more effectively and faster, and how we can use advanced innovative technologies in surgery relating to cardio-vascular diseases. If we close our eyes and consider what we can offer our citizens in the next ten years in the form of new technologies, better research methods, etc, then you will appreciate the huge importance of this programme. In the field of food safety, we also rightly focus in this programme on the fundamental role of food, diet and life style in people’s health. In my view, it is of enormous importance in Europe’s information society to establish the link between mobile communication on the one hand and new technologies in the field of digital television, and the potential in the field of broad-band communication on the other. In this total package, we, as European industry, can play a much better role in employment too. In the final analysis, this is what matters. I should also like to draw your attention to the INTAS project. We are always talking about a much stronger partnership between Europe and Russia. Thanks to the INTAS project, we can considerably strengthen cooperation with Russia, and that is of great importance, partly to combat the brain drain in Russia. Finally, I should like to note that our Commissioner Busquin displayed a great deal of forward thinking when he established the Sixth Framework Programme in this manner and guided it in the direction of a European Research Area. He particularly played a pioneering role in Barcelona when he persuaded the Member States to make joint efforts in order to get industry, the national governments and the European Union ultimately to commit to 3% of GNP for research. This is when actual jobs are created in Europe, this is when dedication for a competitive Europe is evident, and I would thank the Commissioner for this forward thinking. You should see this programme in that light too. It is essential that all groups give their full support to this programme tomorrow so that it can be implemented at the earliest opportunity.

Political group: PPE-DE