On 15 December 2006, the Council reached agreement on a text negotiated by the Parliament and Commission granting renewables and energy end-use efficiency at least €1.175 billion of the budget for non-nuclear energy research over the next seven years.
Parliament had approved the final text on 30 November 2006 after backing down from its original position, which sought more than €2.4bn for renewables (see EurActiv 16 June).
The 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7) is the EU's main instrument for funding European research and has an overall budget of €54 billion.
Following the Council’s decision to support the compromise, the programme will begin as planned in January 2007 and will run until 2013.
The decision was welcomed by Christian Kjaer, chief excecutive of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA): "This decision strongly expresses the will to reverse decades of unbalanced European focus on fossil-fuel energy research. This funding represents an increase of approximately 40% compared to the previous framework programme and will without doubt help reducing the cost of wind energy and reinforce wind technology’s contribution to the Lisbon Strategy."
