While the legal basis of the EU education, research and innovation programmes entered into law, questions remain open concerning implementation and association.
After the approval by the Council of the EU and the European Parliament (EP) earlier in 2021, May saw the publication of a whole series of Regulations of new generation EU programmes in the EU’s Official Journal, the final step towards the entry into force of these regulations: On 12 May, the Horizon Europe Regulation and the Council Decision establishing the Specific Programme implementing Horizon Europe came out. On the same date, also the Regulations, establishing the new Digital Europe Programme and the Research and Training Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community for the period 2021-2025, became public. Other Regulations published on 12 May established the new generation of the European Defence Fund and the Union Space Programme and the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (see SwissCore article). On 28 May, the publication of the Erasmus+ Regulation followed after the approval by the EP in mid-May. All the mentioned new programmes have come into force retroactively from 1 January 2021.
While the Horizon Europe programme has now come into force, the discussions between the European Commission (EC) and EU Member States on restrictions for longstanding EU partners UK, Israel, and Switzerland to participate in Horizon Europe projects deemed ‘sensitive union assets’ continued (see SwissCore article). In May, Member States started to voice concern about the delays caused by the challenging issue that already started in March when EC proposals to exclude the three aforementioned countries from Horizon Europe quantum and space research projects surprised the European research community. Similar as the European research and universities associations that had criticised the restrictions in the EC’s Horizon Europe work programme drafts, a group of Member States led by Germany argued the exclusion of close partner countries from Horizon Europe projects “would result in mistrust among the scientific community and minimise the added value of Horizon Europe for the EU significantly”. Meanwhile, it appears that there exist also different views within the EC, with a camp favouring stronger restrictions and a different one supporting more openness for Horizon Europe participation.
Another important issue of the new generation of EU programmes that awaits progress is the association of third countries. This topic is closely linked to the ongoing discussion on possible restrictions for participation in sensitive projects of Horizon Europe and the EC’s efforts to achieve a higher degree of ‘strategic autonomy’ in various technology areas (see SwissCore article). In the case of Switzerland, the EC is also weighing the “value-added” of the country’s participation in Horizon Europe “against the state of the overall relationship” after the Swiss Government concluded on 26 May that the positions in the negotiations on an ‘Institutional Agreement’ remained too far apart to continue the talks with the EC. The now abandoned agreement would have covered the five existing Swiss-EU market-access agreements on free movement of persons, agricultural products, land transportation, air transportation and the mutual recognition of conformity assessments. However, the planned ‘Institutional Agreement’ did not include any legal links to a future Horizon Europe association. In the context of the decision to abandon talks on the ‘Institutional Agreement’, the Swiss Government expressed the hope that “there will be no undue political links established” in the area of research cooperation, among others.
On 28 May, the meeting of the EU research ministers covered a range of topics: The Council decided about a general approach on the Regulation on establishing the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (HPC), paving the way for the next generation of the HPC Joint Undertaking. Furthermore, ministers discussed how to build the envisioned new European Research Area (ERA). This topic has recently led to criticism by European research and universities associations over a perceived lack of ambition (see SwissCore article). The ministers agreed on Council Conclusions on “Deepening the ERA: Providing researchers with attractive and sustainable careers and working conditions and making brain circulation a reality”. The text focuses on enhancing the attractiveness of research careers in Europe and attracting and retaining excellent researchers. Research careers will continue to be in the focus of the Council during the upcoming Slovenian Presidency in the second half of 2021.