The EC has published its Annual Policy Strategy for 2010, which is designed to start the institutional dialogued on the next year’s priorities. Four policy objectives have been selected: economic and social recovery, climate change and sustainable Europe, putting the citizen first, and Europe as a world partner. It provides an overview of the priorities within these objectives; the proposed priorities will be discussed among the European institutions before being confirmed by the new Commission in autumn 2009.

2010 will prove to be an important year, it will include the mid-term review of the current EU spending programmes, including FP7, and the EC will be looking ahead to the next multi-annual financial framework. The Annual Policy Strategy 2010 explains that the implementation of the European Economic Recovery Plan will be a matter of high priority. It also sets out the basis for the discussions on the 2010 draft budget, setting out proposed changes under each heading of the 2007-2013 Multi-annual Financial Framework. In line with EC financial programming, the proposed 2010 budget will see an increase of nine percent for the budget Heading 1a which includes FP7, LLP, CIP, Trans-European Networks (TENs), Galileo and the EIT.

You can read more stories like this one in the March edition of European RTD Insight.