Proposal for a Council Decision on the position to be adopted within the EEA Joint Committee concerning an amendment to Protocol 31 to the EEA Agreement

The EEA Agreement foresees in Article 78 that the Contracting Parties shall strengthen and broaden cooperation in the framework of the EU's activities in the fields of research and technological development. The Commission, which currently finances exclusively civilian or dual-use R&D through its Horizon 2020 programme, considers the Preparatory Action on Defence Research as a major instrument for testing the added-value of defence-related research from the EU budget.

The draft Decision of the EEA Joint Committee (annexed to the proposed Council Decision) aims to amend Protocol 31 to the EEA Agreement in order to extend the cooperation of the Contracting Parties to the EEA Agreement to include the participation of EEA EFTA States in the Union’s Preparatory Action. As Liechtenstein and Iceland did not express their interest in participating, the draft Decision of the EEA Joint Committee therefore concerns only Norway.

EUR-Lex: COM(2017)582: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2017:582:FIN

ESO: Preparatory action on defence research [European Parliamentary Research Service, October 2016] http://www.europeansources.info/record/preparatory-action-on-defence-research/

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