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Britain, Germany and France refused point blank to support European Commission proposals for a second Thermie programme at a meeting of the Energy Council on May 25. Since it started in 1990, Thermie has granted some ECU 25 million to about 33 wind energy projects. In its first years the programme supported the demonstration of innovative energy technology and dissemination of the advances achieved, but the 1994 call for proposals in the wind sector was for innovative technology only where just one wind turbine in a project would receive support. Thermie expires this year unless the Energy Council agrees to continue it. The programme's activities which do not fall within the 4th Framework Programme of Research and Technology Development would be dropped if Thermie dies.