EU research ministers will meet on Tuesday 29 September and will try to reach a general approach on the entire legislative package establishing Horizon Europe, the EU framework programme for research and innovation for the years 2021 to 2027.
This package consists of two parts: a draft Regulation establishing the Horizon Europe programme and a draft EU Council Decision on the specific programme for the implementation of Horizon Europe.
A general approach on these two texts will be necessary to enable the inter-institutional negotiations to begin as early as October - as requested by the German EU Council Presidency.
This would ensure the launch of Horizon Europe as early as January 2021, when the current Horizon 2020 framework programme will come to an end.
At this meeting, ministers should therefore focus mainly on two points of the draft regulation still pending, namely: the internal breakdown of the Horizon Europe budget and the provisions concerning international cooperation and the association of non-Member States.
Internal budget breakdown. Concerning the distribution of funds by programming areas, several proposals will be evaluated.
The difficulty for ministers will be to come to terms with the budget cuts agreed by the Heads of State and Government.
Last July, EU leaders' negotiations on the Recovery Plan and the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2021-2027 resulted in a downward revision of the funds to be allocated to research and innovation (see EUROPE 12532/6), well below the Commission's initial proposal and the expectations of the European Parliament.
International cooperation. On this second point, ministers will discuss, in particular, recital 40 of the draft regulation, which limits the holdings of legal entities established in the EU or in non-Member States and controlled, directly or indirectly, by non-Member States.
No decision will be taken, however, on the concrete association of individual non-Member States. Negotiations on association agreements will be conducted on a country-by-country basis and can only be launched once the legal acts concerning Horizon Europe have entered into force.
The other three points on which difficulties persisted - the provisions subject to horizontal guidelines, the technical provisions allowing for synergies with other funding programmes and the additional funding under the post-Covid-19 recovery instrument, Next Generation EU, which had been agreed upon by the Committee of Permanent Representatives last week.
Informal discussion. At the end of the meeting, ministers will hold an informal discussion over lunch.
They will discuss how research and innovation can contribute to overcoming the Covid-19 pandemic, advancing research on the use of green hydrogen and strengthening Europe's competitiveness and resilience. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)