More than 60,000 people have signed a petition opposing EU plans for defence research.
The petition, which was set up by the European Network Against Arms Trade in September, calls for the abolition of plans to include funding for defence research in the EU budget. “No EU money should go to military technology. Research money should go to projects developing nonviolent ways of preventing and resolving conflicts, and in particular tackling root-causes of instability,” the petition text says.
The European Commission has proposed that €90 million should be allocated to a Preparatory Action for defence research over three years from 2017. This is intended to pave the way for about €3.5bn to be allocated to defence research in the next Framework programme in 2021-2027.
This article on Research Professional News is only available to Research Professional or Pivot-RP users.
Research Professional users can log in and view the article via this link
Pivot-RP users can log in and view the article via this link.