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National science policy coordination in the European Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Ronald Brickman
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Extract

In January 1974 the Council of Ministers of the European Community issued a resolution calling for the coordination of the science and technology policies of the member countries. This initiative came after several years of largely unrewarded efforts by the European institutions to bring a measure of Community-wide coherence in national R&D programs and objectives. Despite the development of alternative decision-making and implementation procedures, the Community's impact on national activities was on the whole limited in scope, confined to programs of marginal importance and more concerned with the joint execution of specific research tasks than with the political motives and intentions of the member governments. A review of the 1974 resolution's effects, principally through the work of the CREST committee, demonstrates that the multiple obstacles to policy coordination have yet to be overcome. These obstacles stem from a) varying conceptions of the policy coordination task, b) the discrepancies and inadequacies in national science policy formulation, c) deficiencies in the perspectives and procedures of Commission officials and national delegations, and d) a variety of constraints which restrict the domain of possible Community intervention.

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Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , Summer 1977 , pp. 473 - 496
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1977

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References

1 See “Europe agrees on a science policy,” New Scientist, January 17, 1974, p. 142; “European Community: Pragmatic is the Word for the New ‘Europeans,’” Science, Vol. 184, No. 4140 (05 31, 1974): 961–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Macioti, Manfred, “Science and Technology in the Common Market: A Progress Report,” Research Policy, Vol. 4, No. 3 (07 1975): 290–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Dahrendorf, R., “Towards a European Science Policy,” University of Southampton, Nineteenth Fawley Foundation Lecture, 1973Google Scholar.

3 Nau, Henry R., “Collective Responses to R&D Problems in Western Europe: 1955–1958 and 1968–1973,” International Organization, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Summer 1975): 617–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Haas, Ernst B., “Turbulent Fields and the Theory of Regional Integration,” International Organization, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Spring 1976): 173–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also Haas, , The Obsolescence of Regional Integration Theory (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, 1975)Google Scholar.

5 Nau, Henry R., National Politics and International Technology, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), p. 157Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., p. 161.

7 Directorate-General, Joint Research Center, “Memorandum sur l'action de coordination de la Commission conformément á 1'article 5 du Traité Euratom,” 01 15, 1969Google Scholar. In 1976, the Commission reiterated the point by remarking that “in the nuclear and para-nuclear fields governed by the EAEC Treaty … the coordination of national research, although specifically provided for in Article 5 of the Treaty, has never got off the ground.” (Directorate-General Research, Science and Education, Basic Document for Working Party III, Milan Symposium, 05 24–26, 1976)Google Scholar.

8 “Role of the JRC in a Community R&D Policy,” CREST 51/75, June 3, 1975.

9 Nau, , National Politics and International Technology, p. 111Google Scholar.

10 “Common Research and Development Policy: Objectives, Priorities and Resources,” Bulletin of the European Communities, Supplement 4/76.

11 Figures in this paragraph are derived from ibid., and CREST, Le fmancement public de la recherche et du développement dans les pays de la Communauté; Analyse par objectif 1969–1973, 1974, as well as from interviews with Commission officials.

12 See “JET: Will It Ever Get Started?” in Nature, July 29, 1976, pp. 338—42.

13 Lindblom, Charles E., The Intelligence of Democracy (New York: Free Press, 1965)Google Scholar.

14 For a history of the first years of the COST program, see Aked, N. H. and Gummett, P. J., “Science and Technology in the European Communities: The History of the COST Projects,” Research Policy, Vol. 5, No. 3 (07 1976): 270–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 CREST Secretariat, “Les actions d'intérêt communautaire en matiére de R & D,” CREST 17/75, 04 28, 1975Google Scholar.

16 PREST Secretariat, “Analyse du rapport sur le financement public de la R & D dans les pays de la Communauté (1968–1972),” PREST 107/1/72, 11 28, 1972Google Scholar.

17 These suggestions were derived from a review of PREST meeting minutes, 1970–1973, plus the group's 1972 “progress report” (PREST 85/72, April 10, 1972).

18 CREST Secretariat, “Bilan 1974 du CREST,” CREST 72/74, 12 10, 1974Google Scholar.

19 CREST-approved proposals can still be stalled in the COREPER or in the Council over matters which either were insufficiently taken into account in CREST deliberations or because of new circumstances which occur in the intervals of time between one committee's position and another's (e.g., the German government's decision to reduce national expenditure and further Community contributions in 1975).

20 The most controversial point in the COREPER and Council debates was the institutional status of CREST. The British, Danes, and Germans agreed with the Commission proposal for a dual affiliation with the Commission and Council; the French wanted the committee to advise only the Council, and the other delegations, excepting Luxembourg, preferred CREST to become an exclusively Commission committee. (Minutes of the Research Working Group and COREPER meetings throughout 1973).

21 For a classification of international scientific organizations, see University of Sussex, “Examen préliminaire de la coopération scientifique et technologique intergouvernementale en Europe occidentale” (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1971)Google Scholar.

22 This is apparently the concept of coordination employed in the work of the Community's Monetary Committee, which has been no more successful in policy coordination than PREST and CREST. See Russell, Robert W., “L'engrenage, Collegial Style, and the Crisis Syndrome: Lessons from Monetary Policy in the European Community,” Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 13, Nos. 1 and 2 (1975): 61–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Commission, Milan Symposium, May 24–26, 1976, “Summary of the Recommendations of the Working Groups,” XII/556/76.

24 Commission, ”Vers une politique commune de la recherche scientifique et technologique,” 01 15, 1973Google Scholar.

25 OECD, “Trends in the Level and Pattern of R&D Expenditures in the OECD Area Since 1971.” Background report for the meeting of the Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy, Paris, 05 26, 1975Google Scholar.

26 One cannot discount the international element in this trend. See King, Alexander, Science and Policy: The International Stimulus, (London: Oxford University Press, 1974)Google Scholar.

27 Hochmuth, Milton S., Organizing the Transnational: The Experience with Transnational Enterprise in Advanced Technology (Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1974)Google Scholar.

28 The importance attached by Parliaments to a centralized approach to national R and D policy is illustrated by the British Select Committee on Science and Technology in the wake of the debate, Rothschild (Nature, 05 12, 1974Google Scholar), the German Parliament's crucial role in strengthening the coordinating power of the Ministry for Research and Technology in 1975, and the Lamontagne Report in Canada.

29 It can be speculated that one of the factors contributing to the drive for policy coordination in 1972 and 1973 was the leveling off in public R and D outlays in the European countries. Leading politicians would be attracted to the idea of saving resources with no concomitant decline in the advance of scientific knowledge. But restricted domestic science budgets may have also made science authorities less eager to subordinate difficult choices at the national level to international considerations.

30 Pavitt, K., “Technology in Europe's Future,” Research Policy, Nos. 1, 2 (07 1972): 210–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Consecutive issues of the Bulletin of the European Communities,1974—76.

326 Official Journal of the Communities, No. C 108, December 10, 1973, p. 60; European Parliament, Document 71/76, May 10,1976.

33 Nau, , National Politics and International Technology, P. Lemaître, “La Leçon de deux éhees,” Le Monde, 07 1, 1975Google Scholar.

34 A recent statement by UNICE (Union of European Community Industries) fails even to mention policy coordination as a possible Community role, and formulates demands only for indirect action programs, preferably through a Fund for Industrial Development with increased formal and informal consultations with industry. (UNICE, Department of Industrial Development, May 7, 1976.)

35 Transnational lobbying for a greater Community voice may occur as a last resort for survival: witness the support given by the Association of European Aerospace Manufacturers to Commission proposals for the Community coordination of programs and financing to meet competition from the United States. Aviation Week and Space Technology, 10 13 and 12 22, 1975Google Scholar.

36 The following assessments of country positions are based on a review of Commission and COREPER documents discussing the proposals leading to the 1974 resolution, the minutes of the first fifteen meetings of CREST, minutes of the energy and medical research subcommittees, and interviews with Commission officials and deputy-members of CREST from five of the EEC countries.

37 Having excluded themselves for diplomatic reasons from energy R and D proposals discussed in the International Energy Agency forum, the French took an active lead in devising the Community's program in this sector.

38 Over two thirds of the first fifteen CREST meetings were convened at the deputy-member level.

39 Lindberg, Leon N. and Scheingold, Stuart A., Europe's Would-Be Polity (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1970)Google Scholar.

40 Two unsuccessful examples of national initiative in CREST were the efforts of the Belgian delegation to engage the committee in a discussion of a common position on a United Nations proposal, and the Gentian suggestion that CREST review national research programs in electronic components.