Abstract.  The European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy (F4E) is a legal entity located in Barcelona, created in April 2007 for a period of 35 years by the Council of the European Union, in the frame of the Euratom Treaty. F4E has three main objectives:
(i) to provide the Euratom’s contribution to ITER, acting as the European Domestic Agency;
(ii) to support fusion research and development initiatives through the Broader Approach Agreement, signed by Euratom and Japan, a fusion energy partnership which will last for 10 years, being the EU contribution mainly implemented by the donor countries: France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium; and
(iii) to contribute towards the construction of demonstration fusion reactors.

This paper describes the F4E programme that is being carried out aiming at fulfilling the above mentioned objectives. Particular attention is given to the research and development activities that have been carried out by the Euratom Fusion Programme in order to provide the in-kind contributions to the ITER project. Most of the physics and technologic developments are well beyond the present knowledge and/or state-of-art in alpha-particle physics, instability mitigation and control, vacuum technology, superconducting magnets, plasma facing components, divertor, heating and current drive, diagnostics, real-time plasma control, remote handling and breeding blanket. The status of the main BA projects (IFMIF EVEDA, IFERC and JT60-SA) is also reported.

Finally the F4E governance and organization are described as well as the complex interfaces with ITER International Organization and the Domestic Agencies of the other ITER Parties.