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supply weapons used
to attack civilians in Gaza are benefiting from
scientific research projects soon to be adminis-
tered by Ireland’s new EU commissioner Máire
Geoghegan Quinn. Since the September
th
atrocities in , the European Commission
has revised the guidelines for research funding to
embrace projects linked to George Bush’s “war on
terror”. Israel is the main foreign partner in the
EU’s multi-annual ‘framework programme’ for
research, which has been allocated € billion
for the period -. Ten of the initial
projects described by the EU as “security research”
have involved Israeli companies, or Israeli aca-
demic or state institutions.
Motorola Israel, for example, is taking part
in iDetect All, an EU-funded surveillance
project designed to provide alerts of suspicious
activities near buildings, or resources of eco-
nomic value. Motorola is the top maker of fuses
for aircraft bombs used by the Israeli air force.
Weapons components bearing a Motorola label
have been found by investigators from Human
Rights Watch who searched the sites bombed by
Israel in Gaza in late and the beginning of
this year. Motorola-made fuses were also a cen-
tral part of the bomb with which Israel killed at
least civilians, most of them children, living in
an apartment block in Qana, Lebanon, in .
Motorola’s surveillance equipment, meanwhile, is
being tested in the occupied West Bank. Over the
past five years, a Motorola radar system worth
$ million has been installed in Israeli set-
tlements there. The Jerusalem Post has described
the system as a “virtual fence” that uses thermal
cameras to pinpoint “intruders”.
The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign
(IPSC) is seeking an appointment with Geoghegan
Quinn before she formally takes up the post of EU
research commissioner early . “Europe
can’t be an honest broker [in the Middle East]
and support the Israeli arms industry at the same
time”, said David Landy, the IPSC chairman. The
European Commission has tried to conceal how
its scientific research has become increasingly
militarised. Janez Potocnik, the outgoing research
commissioner, has said “there is nothing that
would be defence related” in the EU’s research
programme. While the Commission admits that
it funds “security research”, it insists that it is
of a civilian nature. But a study by Statewatch,
the civil liberties organisation, has found that
almost half of all companies that have taken part
in the EU’s “security research” projects to date
are defence companies. Statewatch spokesman
Ben Hayes said it is “extremely alarming” that the
EU is financing high-tech surveillance projects
that could imperil fundamental rights such as the
right to privacy. He urged Geoghegan Quinn to
“go back to the drawing board” and re-evaluate
the security-research projects that Potocnik had
authorised.
Geoghegan Quinn will inherit responsibility,
too, for a range of energy-research projects that
have been heavily criticised by environmental
campaigners. In January, the EU’s Ombudsman,
Nikiforos Diamandouros, is scheduled to release
the results of an investigation into an alleged con-
flict of interests over grants for the development of
biofuels. His investigation follows a complaint by
Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), an organ-
isation monitoring the activities of lobbyists in
Brussels. CEO has protested at how Potocnik has
recruited energy and biotechnology firms such as
Shell, Syngenta, Repsol, and Abengoa, to advise
him on the future direction of EU policies. All of
these companies have been awarded EU grants.
A target approved by EU governments in
, that ten per cent of all road transport
in the Union should be powered by biofuels by
, was based on recommendations from an
advisory group set up by Potocnik and almost
entirely comprising private-sector representa-
tives. Since then, the World Food Programme has
identified the greater use of agricultural crops for
cars as a significant factor behind food price rises
that have exacerbated global hunger. Olivier
Hoedeman, a CEO campaigner, said that the EU’s
research agenda is being driven by a number of
“unaccountable” advisory groups, dominated by
large multinational companies. Often, he added,
the same companies that help establish the EU’s
priorities and assess applications for finance are
those which benefit directly from grants. “The
new commissioner [Geoghegan Quinn] should
roll back the involvement of industry in shaping
proposals and at other stages in the allocation
of funding”, he said. “A review is needed so that
research serves the public interest and not pri-
vate companies”.
“Almost half of all
companies that
have taken part in
the EU’s security
research projects
are defence
companies”
-’
Ireland’s new EU commissioner
for research should ensure
projects do not serve unsavoury
military and vested interests
d a v i d c r o n i n
European Commission
Early Geoghegan-Quinn: FF Ard Fheis 1986 with
Charles Haughey and Brian Lenihan
PHOTO: PHOTOCALL IRELAND
