Parliament supports 10% rise in EU research budget

The budget committee of the European Parliament has said it wants to maintain a planned increase of 10 per cent in the EU research budget for 2012. Under the committee’s proposal, research would obtain the largest increase of any major category of spending, as envisaged in the framework already agreed for spending from 2007 to 2013. However, in response to the financial crisis, the Council of Ministers has requested that research spending in 2012 be cut from the planned €12.56 billion to €11.43bn, in effect remaining the same as last year. The full Parliament was due to vote on the budget committee proposal on 26 October.