Discussions on Horizon Europe implementation are progressing – here are some of the important milestones that have been achieved.
Besides the 16 EU neighbours already in the existing programme,the Commission is dicussing Horizon membership with six other non-EU countries: Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea. The commission is proposing that non-EU countries, including longstanding partners like Switzerland and Israel, get out of Horizon only as much money as they commit to it, a change from the prior formula that saw some countries ending up with more or less money than they contributed. The draft Horizon legislation, which EU member state officials are due to start discussing on 10 February, also requires that Horizon partners share the same democratic values – a veto to China – and provide reciprocal access for EU researchers in their own national programmes.
However as the commission gets ready for formal Horizon negotiations with non-EU countries, the transatlantic contractual disagreement has grown into a bigger issue.
Constance C. Arvis, director of the US State Department’s Office of Science and Technology expressed “concern” about EU-US cooperation.
“If they (the terms) are finalised in the path that we think they may be, that means that for seven years we are going to have to interact with a structure that is fundamentally not going to incentivise science across the Atlantic. And we think that is a very unnecessary and undesirable outcome,” Arvis said.
In her statement, Arvis said
- the budgetary terms are “not an incentive to associate” – the legal term for a country formally joining the programme.
- The proposed terms also don’t allow an international associate any oversight. “In other words, we can pay in, but we don’t get to decide how it’s used,”
- In addition, the terms would allow the commission “unilaterally to exclude” associated third countries from elements of the programme.
Read the full text Constance C. Arvis, director for science and technology cooperation at the US State Department, delivered Here
More information:here
