Recent amendments to the FP10 proposal introduce a new category of ‘trusted partners’ to improve research predictability, quality, and collaboration.
The European Parliament (EP) and the Council of the EU are intensively working on their positions on the FP10 draft regulation as proposed by the European Commission (EC) last year; both institutions are expected to find common ground by summer 2026 in order to enter the inter-institutional negotiations in the second half of this year – the so-called trilogues. Following the EP rapporteur’s draft report on FP10 from 13 March 2026 (see SwissCore article), all other MEPs and their political groups now had the opportunity to propose their own amendments to the text. Up to the deadline of 9 April 2026, a total of 1’467 amendments were tabled for FP10, which will now be negotiated between the Rapporteur and the Shadow Rapporteurs who are representing their political groups on this file. I want to look at two amendments in particular more closely: Amendment 875 and Amendment 907. Both amendments originate from MEPs Ivars Ijabs, Elisabetta Gualmini, Barry Andrews, Morten Løkkegaard, Michał Kobosko, Bart Groothuis and Martin Hojsík. They are all part of the Renew Europe group in the Parliament. What do the amendments concretely say?
Both amendments concern Article 9 of the FP10 draft regulation which deals with association of third countries to FP10. Amendment 875 adds a new category of countries to the existing four for “third countries designated as trusted partners in accordance with paragraph 4a”. The new list of the five categories would then be:
- members of EFTA / EEA, as well as European micro-states
- third countries designated as trusted partners in accordance with paragraph 4a
- acceding countries, candidate countries and potential candidates
- European Neighbourhood Policy countries
- other third countries.
Amendment 907 then introduces paragraph 4a that defines the criteria a country has to fulfil in order to be categorised as ‘trusted partner’. These are:
- the country has a demonstrated track record of sustained and substantive participation in previous Union framework programmes for research and innovation, or in equivalent multilateral scientific cooperation arrangements with the Union;
- the country maintains a commitment to the values referred to in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, including respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights;
- the country has a robust legal and institutional framework for the protection of intellectual property rights, research integrity and personal data;
- participation of the country does not contravene the strategic interests of the Union or its Member States, including as regards economic security and the protection of critical research outputs.
At the same time, MEPs from the Socialists & Democrats group Lina Gálvez, Elena Sancho Murillo, Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, Christophe Clergeau, Giorgio Gori, Sofie Eriksson, Matthias Ecke and René Repasi similarly proposed to introduce a new country category in the same article that reads “previously associated countries to Horizon Europe not included in Article 9 (1) (a), (b) or (c)”. It will be very relevant to see how these proposals will be negotiated and how this would affect and hopefully improve the participation of Switzerland in the framework programme for research and innovation.
A prominent Brussels-based think tank, CEPS, has also focused on this topic with a recent event and report entitled “Globalising FP10: better engagement with associated and low- and middle-income countries”. The report starts with the observation that the open association model of the current Horizon Europe programme has “proven mutually beneficial, fostering scientific excellence and soft power; yet the current proposed programme gives the impression that it will be less open to non-EU countries”. Concretely, the report suggests “moving away from an EU-centric narrative which risks alienating global partners” to a ‘Team World’ approach. On Switzerland specifically, the report notes that a Swiss association is not primarily about financial return anymore but rather about access to excellence, infrastructures, networks and agenda-setting. Finally, CEPS underlines that Switzerland is a central pillar of the European scientific capacity. Therefore, the report argues that associated countries should be included in the new governance of FP10, e.g. in the Council of European Competitiveness or the Council on Global Challenges if established, and that research security should not become a proxy for exclusion.