paucity of both information and channels for 

 dissemination outside the State Department. Moreover, 

 the reporting format does not lend itself to easy reading 

 by those not familiar with State Department cable traffic. 



Other agencies conducting S&T activities with 

 European counterparts tend to concentrate 

 understandably on the relatively narrow operational 

 aspects of their particular mission objectives, where 

 resources are applied in an ad hoc manner to acquiring 

 and assessing information as the need arises. Seldom is 

 such information or assessment put into written form, 

 particularly any form available to a public audience. 



Standards-Setting and Regulatory Processes 



Concern: Potential advantages to U.S. advanced 



technology research and competitiveness 

 deriving from the Single Market could be 

 hindered or obstructed by the EC's use of 

 standards-setting and regulatory processes to 

 discriminate against non-EC products. The 

 standards setting process is open at the initial 

 technical level only to participants from EC 

 and EFTA countries, and the U.S. lacks 

 access to EC regulatory processes. A unified 

 EC system may further hinder U.S. access to 

 the Single Market, via scientific discovery and 

 techno-logical innovation, through the 

 adoption of non-scientific considerations in 

 establishing standards and regulatory regimes, 

 especially in emerging fields with clear 

 applications potential. 



Issues: How can the U.S. government most 



effectively work to ensure that EC standards 

 and regulations are based upon sound 

 scientific criteria and that non-scientific 

 economic or political factors are not included 

 as criteria? What approach should be 

 undertaken to obtain greater openness, or 

 transparency, in the European 

 standards-setting and regulatory processes, 

 especially as they apply to research activities? 



Assessment: hifluences of European Standards and 

 Regulatory Processes on U.S. R&D and 

 Advanced Technology Competitiveness 



This topic affects principally U.S. industrial applied 

 R&D. However the potential for U.S. exclusion from 

 European pre-normative standards processes, as well as 

 from the regulatory environment, carries implications 



for some fields of basic research as well. The emergence 

 of EC-wide standardization and regulation of advanced 

 technology goods and services potentially can provide 

 tremendous advantages for U.S. firms in R&D, as well 

 as marketing. However, potential exists to delay, inhibit 

 or otherwise obstruct competition from non-EC goods 

 and services. This in turn might adversely affect the U.S. 

 R&D and marketing activities necessary to compete 

 effectively in quality and innovation. 



U.S. entities and individuals are denied official access 

 to European deliberations at those early points in the 

 processes that establish parameters for technology 

 applications and product technical, health and safety 

 standards. The U.S. telecommunications industry for 

 example has complained that, in European deliberations 

 pertaining to ISDN and OSI technologies, European 

 companies have the advantage of foreknowledge of 

 future standards through their participation in 

 CEN/CENELEC deliberations, which are closed at the 

 technical level even to observation by private sector 

 representatives from non-European countries. 



Additionally, major European public R&D 

 investment choices can themselves strongly influence, if 

 not determine, decisions on future standards in given 

 fields, with negative impact on those who choose to 

 invest in competing or different R&D activities. And not 

 least, regulations can be implemented to satisfy public 

 apprehensions concerning product and process safety 

 and control, despite the absence of solid technical or 

 scientific foundation for those perceptions - the so-called 

 "fourth criterion.". The current vociferous debate in 

 Europe — and concomitant variations in the regulation of 

 research — over the scientific basis for EC-wide 

 regulations on testing and release of 

 biotechnologically-produced or genetically-engineered 

 organisms are illustrative of the vulnerability of R&D 

 programs to the politicization of standards and 

 regulatory processes. 



Civilian Research and Technology Assistance 

 to Eastern Europe 



Concern: East European economies lack both the 

 market-based S&T infrastructure and the 

 entrepreneurial, capitalist-oriented R&D 

 management cadre necessary to attract and 

 utilize Western technological assistance, 

 particularly that available from the private 

 sector. A related concern is that the East 

 European transition to a market economy, and 



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