Negotiations over the renewal of UK participation in the European Union’s Horizon Europe science programme are ongoing, despite reaching a “crunchy” phase, according to UK chancellor, Jeremy Hunt.
Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation regarding climate change and the UN’s Sustainable Development goals, among other things.
Speaking in Brussels this week, Hunt said any agreement over the UK restarting involvement in the €95.5bn programme, which runs until 2027, would depend upon its benefit to British taxpayers.
“Both sides recognise that it [Horizon] is a successful and very important programme,” he said. “The optimal outcome would be to find a way where participation can work for the UK.”
When quizzed about whether the talks had stalled, Hunt said: “I wouldn’t describe them as stalled. I think that they are becoming more ‘crunchy’ as we start to work out precisely what terms for participation in Horizon would be fair to UK taxpayers and work for the UK.
“But I think both sides recognise that it is a successful and very important programme and the optimal outcome will be to find a way where participation can work for the UK,” he added.
Launched in 2021, the UK was set to renew its participation in the programme as part of the post-Brexit trade deal but hopes of that happening looked doomed following disputes around the Northern Ireland Protocol. That treaty puts the UK region formally outside the EU single market, although the EU free movement of goods rules and EU Customs Union rules still apply
With issues around the protocol finally resolved through the so-called Windsor Framework in February this year, the door was opened once more by European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, for the UK to renew its association with the science programme.
However, it now seems talks between the UK and EU have become bogged down over exactly how much the UK should pay towards Horizon Europe’s budget during its remaining three-and-a-half years. The UK Government says the figure should reflect the lasting impact of two years of EU delays regarding the country’s association with the programme.
The EC has said the UK does not have to pay to cover the years of 2021 and 2022. The UK, meanwhile, says it will take time for researchers to get back up to speed and join research consortia, putting them at a disadvantage for the period the programme still has to run.
Still, UK science minister, George Freeman, said recently that it would be “pretty extraordinary” if a deal with the EU was not reached. “We just need a fair settlement – a fair re-association price,” he told the UK Parliament’s internal magazine, The House.
Hunt was in Brussels to sign a memorandum of understanding with EC financial services commissioner, Mairead McGuinness, who in the latest display of an apparently budding partnership with the UK commented: “I think it’s fair to say we’ve turned a page in our relationship.”
