Cultura y Educación

The Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR) was designed as a precursor programme of the European Defence Fund (EDF). This is the ECA’s first audit in the defence area and assessed whether the PADR properly prepared the EU to significantly increase its defence spending through the EDF. We conclude that, while some lessons were learned, the value of the PADR as a testbed for increasing EU defence spending was reduced due to the time constraints and limited results available. When the EDF was launched, most PADR projects were still ongoing. We make several recommendations to help the EDF reach its objectives, in particular to design a long-term strategy to increase the use of the technology developed in the EU defence sector.

La Acción Preparatoria de la Unión sobre Investigación en materia de Defensa (Acción Preparatoria) es un programa precursor del Fondo Europeo de Defensa. Esta es la primera auditoría del Tribunal en el ámbito de defensa. En ella se evaluó si dicha acción preparó adecuadamente a la UE para aumentar sensiblemente su gasto en defensa a través del Fondo Europeo de Defensa. Concluimos que, aunque se han extraído algunas lecciones, la falta de tiempo y los escasos resultados han reducido su valor como banco de pruebas para incrementar el gasto en defensa de la UE. Cuando se introdujo el Fondo Europeo de Defensa, la mayoría de los proyectos de la Acción Preparatoria se encontraban todavía en curso. Formulamos diversas recomendaciones que sirvan de ayuda para que el Fondo Europeo de Defensa alcance sus objetivos, especialmente el de definir una estrategia a largo plazo para ampliar el uso de la tecnología desarrollada en el sector de la defensa de la UE.

The current EU legislation on GMOs and GM food and feed requires analytical testing to support traceability of these products on the market. The European Network of GMO Laboratories has reviewed the implications of the analytical requirements when they are applied to plant products developed with the use of new genomic techniques, i.e. targeted mutagenesis and cisgenesis. This review concluded that analytical testing to support traceability is not considered feasible for all products obtained by targeted mutagenesis and cisgenesis, both due to technical restrictions and because of implementation issues.