Proposal for a Council Decision amending Decision 2007/198/Euratom establishing the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy and conferring advantages upon it

This Council Decision amends Council Decision (2007/198/Euratom) of 27 March 2007 establishing the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy and conferring advantages upon it to provide the basis for the financing of the activities of this Joint Undertaking (hereinafter "Fusion for Energy") for the period 2014-2020 under the Euratom Treaty.

The Fusion for Energy cost estimates for the construction phase (cost for Europe only), covering the period 2007-2020, amounted in March 2010 to €7.2 billion (in 2008 value). In July 2010 the Council capped the European contribution to that phase to €6.6 billion (in 2008 value). In February 2013, the European Council set up the maximum level of the Euratom commitments for ITER in the Multiannual Financial Framework Regulation for the period 2014-2020 at €2.707 million (in 2011 value).

Under the Seventh Framework Programme the Euratom contribution was made available through the Community research and training programme adopted pursuant to Article 7 of the Euratom Treaty. This financing modality required to comply with a series of requirements in terms of participation, rules, planning, monitoring and evaluation which are specific to research programmes. These requirements are now redundant given the competencies and role assigned to Fusion for Energy in its Statutes.

Differently from what was done under the Seventh Framework Programme, this proposal is not designed as a research programme under Article 7 of the Euratom Treaty. It is instead based on Article 47 and refers to the participation of Euratom in the financing of the Joint Undertaking.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)607: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:607:FIN

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