Research ministers confident of role in Horizon Europe negotiations

EU research ministers do not expect to have a reduced role during negotiations on the future Horizon Europe programme, despite Council plans to assign parts of it to finance ministers via the ad hoc working party on the next multiannual EU budget.

Science|Business recently reported that the working party, which usually deals with articles referring directly to budgets, would also examine parts of the Horizon Europe plans, including the Widening programme for member states with weaker innovation capacities and the use of excellence as the main criterion for evaluating proposals.

“Does that leave us as research ministers in a reduced role? No, I don’t think that it does,” said Denmark’s science minister, Christina Egelund, in response to a question from Science|Business following a meeting of research ministers in Brussels on September 30.

“I think our role as research ministers is to make the most out of the frames under which we are working and make sure that, when it comes to investing in infrastructure, when it comes to being strategic in matters of critical technologies, AI, quantum computing, et cetera, we are the ones who are there to make things work,” she went on.

In theory, coordination mechanisms at the member state level should mean that research ministries’ priorities are taken into consideration during the overall discussions. However, there “is indeed a risk” that their role will be downgraded, one member state diplomat told Science|Business.

National science ministries “will have to organise themselves very hard” to ensure they have a say in decisions made by the ad hoc working party, said Joep Roet, deputy director of Neth-ER, which represents the Dutch research sector in Brussels.

However, Roet is not overly concerned about the excellence criterion being taken out of negotiations. “I think this is such a fundamental point,” he said. “I have confidence in the ability of science ministries everywhere to talk to their finance ministers and make sure it remains in the Horizon Europe regulation.”

Long road to a deal

During Tuesday’s meeting, research ministers had their first official debate on the European Commission’s proposal for the post-2027 Horizon Europe programme. The discussion focused on plans to open up funding to dual-use research, with both civil and military applications.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has prompted a shift in attitudes across the continent and there was broad support for the inclusion of dual use research. However, member states want civil research to remain the primary focus of the programme, and for safeguards to be put in place concerning research security and the continuation of international collaboration. Several ministers also stressed the importance of continuing to award funding based on open competition.

Countries were more divided over the proposal to allow technologies with purely defence applications into the European Innovation Council’s Accelerator programme. Austria, for example, argued that defence research should be limited to the European Competitiveness Fund.

The Danish presidency of the Council wants to make quick progress with the Horizon Europe negotiations. No agreement is expected before the end of the year, however, and negotiations will continue under the presidency of Cyprus from January 2026.

Budget uncertainty

The dual use debate followed an informal meeting of research ministers with research Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva on July 17, the day after the plans were presented. At the Copenhagen gathering, ministers welcomed the proposal to almost double Horizon Europe’s budget from 2028. However, the overall envelope will ultimately be decided during negotiations on the EU budget by finance ministers and heads of state and government.

Those talks are likely to split member states into three broad camps. On one side, there are the countries which get back more from the EU budget than they put in and usually advocate higher levels of spending, particularly on cohesion policy.

On the other side are the so-called frugal countries, including the Netherlands and Sweden, which oppose increasing the EU budget. In the middle are countries such as France and Spain, which are net contributors but want to see higher levels of spending, financed in part by joint borrowing.

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While every EU country is supportive of research and innovation, it is usually not the main issue, Roet said. Instead, they may prioritise cohesion funding, agriculture, or a smaller overall budget. “Everybody is always in favour of increasing funding for research, but for everyone it is always priority number two, and if push comes to shove, everybody goes for priority number one.”

While the Netherlands supports focusing EU funds more on innovation, the Dutch government promptly rejected the Commission’s €2 trillion proposal for the next EU budget. In a letter sent to the Dutch parliament last month, the country’s foreign affairs and finance ministers warned that the proposal would mean the Dutch contribution would increase by around €5 billion per year. That is compared to the current EU budget and plans to reduce the Dutch contribution in the coming years.

In past negotiations, Germany, the largest contributor to the EU budget, has been willing to increase what it pays in, but this time the government has announced that it will oppose a substantial increase to EU spending. So, the country looks set to align itself more with the frugals than with neighbouring France.

“The German federal budget is already under considerable pressure and this strain is likely to intensify in the coming years,” said Jan Wöpking, managing director of the U15 group of German universities. “If this doesn’t change, then I don’t see Germany increasing its contributions.”

The Commission’s wish to retain a certain level of flexibility to respond to emerging priorities will make the budget negotiations more complex this time around, according to the member state diplomat.

The increasing focus on competitiveness, as well as the Commission’s desire to raise new “own resources,” which don’t depend on member state contributions, also “make it very difficult to predict how the negotiations are going to turn out,” said another member state diplomat.

Meanwhile, security and defence have emerged as top priorities against an ever-shifting geopolitical situation. “What will happen in the next years, especially regarding the security situation in Europe, will clearly have a profound impact on budget negotiations,” Wöpking said.

Adding to the uncertainty are upcoming elections, including in the Netherlands in October 2025 and in France in early 2027, which are likely to influence official attitudes towards EU spending.

Research stakeholders were relieved when the Commission proposed a significant budget increase for Horizon Europe, but having initially lobbied for at least €200 billion, they will be hoping to avoid major reductions during inter-institutional negotiations.

Once inflation is taken into account, €175 billion would be closer to a 50% increase than the doubling claimed by the Commission, Science|Business analysis shows.

“€175 billion is a good start, but even that wouldn’t be enough,” Roet said. “I put my faith in the European Parliament to set things right and increase the budget to €200 billion.”

Budget negotiations often run until the eleventh hour. Member states and the Parliament only reached a deal on the current seven-year budget in December 2020, some 20 days before the budget was due to kick in.

With uncertainty across Europe and with financial constraints in many countries, finding an agreement “will be even harder this time,” Wöpking said.