SESSION ON PANEUROPEAN PARTNERSHIP HELD WITHIN UNESCO ASSEMBLY

PARIS, Nov 6 (Hina) - Science ministers and experts for science policies who are taking part in the work of the UNESCO General Assembly in Paris, on Saturday held a special meeting on "Pan- European Partnership", which was chaired by Croatia's Science and Technology Minister Milena Zic-Fuchs. Saturday's session revolved around measures for the furtherance of the scientific cooperation between European countries in transition and western European states. Participants in the session analysed the results in implementation of an agreement made at a similar gathering in Budapest in the late June during the World Conference on Science. The Budapest conference defined measures for systematic promotion of ties between universities of countries in transition and western European countries, and for strengthening of relations between university centres and economic research institutes. A main stumbling block for science in countries in transition is chronic financial problems, according to participants in the Paris session. The systematic pan-European partnership and cooperation, however, can help exploit scientific potentials of the Continent and stop widening a gap which is still evident in the field of science even after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Croatian Minister Zic-Fuchs told Croatian reporters that she was very pleased to see a larger number of participants from western Europe at the Paris session than at the Budapest conference. "This means that the Budapest meeting was successful, for it aroused such interest and prompted this sequence of events," she said. She added that participants in the Paris session took note of two proposals of the Croatian delegation: one is that financial problems should be considered at a joint meeting of economic and science ministers and the other is that regional centres be established in Europe to help stimulate projects for young researchers and scientists. (hina) ms