The European Union should be spending at least €1 billion a year on security research, a high-level group told European Commission President Romano Prodi on Monday (March 15).

Electronics, information technology and telecommunications are at the heart of solutions to current security challenges, the EU said in a statement. Biosciences are also expected to plan an important part.

The high-level group of 27 leaders, including research commissioner Philippe Busquin and enterprise commissioner Erkki Liikanen, criticized what they called the current artificial divide between defense and civilian research, the lack of specific schemes for security research at the EU level and poor cooperation and coordination across the EU.

These deficiencies are said to "exacerbate the lack of public research funding and present major obstacles to delivering cost-effective solutions," the group said in its report Research for a Secure Europe.

Prodi welcomed the report. "Last Thursday's tragic events in...

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