Ronald Plasterk, a scientist and columnist for leading Dutch daily De Volkskrant, recently wrote a piece exposing the veritable hell which fellow scientists must undergo in order to receive European Union research and development subsidies. Even once they've received them, in fact, the bureaucratic nightmare continues. Agreeing wholeheartedly with these criticisms, SP Euro-MP Erik Meijer has put a written question to the European Commission in which, amongst other things, he argues that if the system cannot be made more efficient it should simply be abandoned "because the way in which it is now conducted is fatal to scientific cooperation."
Read more