The Council's Legal Service has chosen to confirm the European Commission's approach to the European Industrial, Technology and Research Competence Centre at EU level. This is the result of its confidential legal study on the link between the future centre and the Horizon 2020 programme, carried out at the request of the Member States and distributed to them on 19 June.
The draft regulation is one of 30 legislative proposals presented by the Juncker Commission to strengthen the digital single market. Presented in September 2018, it was close to the epilogue before Member States expressed doubts about the conformity of the proposal, which was intended to allow them to share their research capabilities and results achieved in the field of cybersecurity and to deploy innovative cybersecurity solutions (see EUROPE 12095/18). In particular, Member States refused to be forced to co-finance the new structures to complement EU contributions under the Horizon Europe programme. They wondered about the legal form of the new collaboration.
The Council's Legal Service states that the new collaboration takes the form of an "institutionalised European Partnership". It confirms that Member States must indeed contribute at least 50% in order to be in line with the Horizon Europe Programme. The European Competence Centre may also be entrusted with the implementation of the Horizon Europe Work Programme covering the budget for cybersecurity without acting as an institutionalised European Partnership. In such a case, the Legal Service specifies that the "matching" principle does not apply, which means that Member States do not need to match the European counterpart.
This legal study should enable national experts to resume their discussions as early as next week. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)