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The EC Court of Auditors, the body that evaluates the European Commission’s
spending, has published a detailed criticism of Esprit, the programme on
information technology which takes up nearly a third of the Commission’s
Framework budget for scientific research.

The court castigated the slowness of payments made by Esprit to research
partners, saying it conflicts with the need for rapid product development,
and ‘undermines the competitiveness of the Community industry’.

The court said the Commission should do more to ensure that companies
that receive research funds use the results for commercial products. Officials
at the commission say that research in the next round of Esprit will be
more targeted towards specific products, an approach the court called ‘promising’.