This month saw President von der Leyen’s State of the EU Address, Commissioner Ivanova’s appointment, and an agreement on the UK’s association.
On 13 September 2023, in her last State of the European Union address before the EU Parliament elections in June 2024, European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen highlighted the achievements during the past four years at the helm of the EC: “Thanks to this Parliament, to Member States and to my team of Commissioners, we have delivered over 90% of the Political Guidelines I presented in 2019.” Although her speech focused to a large degree on what was accomplished during her term so far, she also touched on a variety of topics that either directly relate to education, research, and innovation (ERI) or will influence the EU’s ERI policies and programmes further down the road. While the EC intends to prioritise ongoing legislative work like the AI Act, the Critical Raw Materials Act or the new Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP), von der Leyen also presented a few new initiatives.
In the area of the European Green Deal, the new initiatives include a climate target for 2040, foreseen for the first quarter of 2024. The EU’s upcoming 10th framework programme for research and innovation (FP10) 2028-2034 will have to contribute to the new climate targets by investing in the research and innovation (R&I) topics that help achieving it. When it comes to past innovation achievements in the Green Deal area, von der Leyen sees the EU on a good pathway: “In the last five years, the number of clean steel factories in the EU has grown from zero to 38.” Furthermore, she pointed out that the EU is attracting more investment in clean hydrogen than the US and China combined. Moreover, von der Leyen views the EU in a leadership role when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), referring to the upcoming AI Act as the “world’s first comprehensive pro-innovation AI law”. She called for a leading role of the EU for a global AI framework: “I believe Europe, together with partners, should lead the way on a new global framework for AI, built on three pillars: guardrails, governance and guiding innovation.” Her speech also included a concrete AI-related innovation initiative to open up European supercomputer capacity to ethical and responsible AI start-ups to train their models. This would allow the EU to capitalise on investment in the past years, which allowed the EU to become a leader in high-performance computing with currently 3 of the 5 most powerful supercomputers in the world. Related to the area of education and training, von der Leyen announced that the EC will work with the Belgian Presidency next year to convene a new Social Partner Summit, rekindling the social dialogue that was initiated by her predecessor Jacques Delors in the 1980s at Val Duchesse: “Together we must focus on the challenges facing the labour market – from skills and labour shortages, to new challenges stemming from AI.”
Von der Leyen also used the opportunity of her state of the EU address to highlight the importance of the EC’s recent STEP proposal, pointing out its importance in giving European companies access to key technologies (see SwissCore article): “With STEP we can boost, leverage and steer EU funds to invest in everything from microelectronics to quantum computing and AI. From biotech to clean tech. Our companies need this support now – so I urge for a quick agreement on our budget proposal.”
Moreover, the EC President stressed the importance of close cooperation with key international partners. This includes creating a “mutually beneficial partnership which focuses on common issues for Europe and Africa”. Furthermore, she highlighted the EU’s Global Gateway strategy and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor project that she signed in New Delhi in early September. The project includes a rail link connecting Europe, the Arabian Gulf, and India as well as infrastructure such as an electricity cable, a clean hydrogen pipeline and also “a high-speed data cable, to link some of the most innovative digital ecosystems in the world, and create business opportunities all along the way”.
Earlier this month, on 7 September, after months of negotiations, the EC and the UK government reached a political agreement on the United Kingdom’s association to Horizon Europe, and Copernicus, the EU’s earth observation programme. Researchers and innovators from the UK will be able to participate in Horizon Europe from the 2024 work programmes and onwards, including the 2024 calls opening already in 2023. For calls from the 2023 work programmes, the UK will continue to provide funding under the UK Guarantee. The political agreement does not yet cover the participation of the UK in Horizon Europe work programme actions related to Union strategic assets, interests, autonomy or security under Art. 22(5) of the Horizon Europe Regulation, which are limited to legal entities established only in EU Member States or in specified associated or other third countries. The EC published questions & answers related to the UK’s association to Horizon Europe and Copernicus and the UK government published an explainer document as well, offering further information for the R&I community.
As the UK has not been associated to Horizon Europe during 2021-2023, the EC and the UK government agreed on an automatic mechanism to address the risk of underperformance by the UK for the remainder of the current MFF should the imbalance exceed 16%. If the UK overpays by more than 12%, it may bring the matter to the joint Specialised Committee on Participation in Union Programmes for consideration and agreement of appropriate measures to balance the situation. It is estimated that the UK will contribute around €2.6 billion per year for its association to Horizon Europe and Copernicus. The political agreement between the EC and the UK will now have to be approved by the Council before it can be formally adopted in the EU-UK Specialised Committee on Participation in Union Programmes (cf. proposal for a Council Decision). The UK decided not to associate to Euratom and Fusion4Energy/ITER given its industry’s long absence from Euratom and F4E/ITER programmes that cannot be reversed.
September also brought a new Commissioner for innovation, research, culture, education, and youth: After her hearing in the EU Parliament on 5 September and the subsequent support from the EP in mid-September, Iliana Ivanova was formally appointed on 19 September by the Council of the EU by common accord with EC President von der Leyen (see SwissCore article). Ivanova succeeds Mariya Gabriel, who stepped down in May 2023 to join the new Bulgarian government (see SwissCore article). Her appointment as the new Commissioner shall be for the remainder of the term of office of the current EC, which runs until 31 October 2024.