HC Deb 09 July 1990 vol 176 cc52-3W
Mr. Andrew MacKay

To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the outcome of the Research Council on 29 June.

Mr. Douglas Hogg

I represented Her Majesty's Government at the meeting of the Community's Council of Ministers (Research) in Luxembourg on 29 June.

The Council adopted a research and technological development programme on human genome analysis, which will run for two years with a total budget of 15 million ecu (£10.7 million). The Council agreed common positions on the EURET (transport research) and EUROTRA (development of machine translations systems) research and technological development programmes. The council also agreed a resolution on co-operation between COST (European co-operation in scientific and technical research) and the countries of central and eastern Europe.

There was also a preliminary discussion of two recent communications from the Commission on research co-operation with third countries and with eastern Europe. The Council is likely to have further discussion on this subject later in the year.