Fight intensifies over an ‘independent’ FP10

The European research community is growing increasingly worried about plans to incorporate the successor to Horizon Europe, FP10, into a new Competitiveness Fund to be launched under the multiannual budget due to start in 2028. 

The issue is currently being negotiated inside the Commission, but diplomats and research stakeholders warn that the window for convincing the top brass to drop the idea is closing fast. 

According to EU officials familiar with the internal negotiations, the decision will ultimately be taken by Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, who sees the research programme as contributing to her agenda on economic competitiveness, and only increased pressure from member states could sway her.

EU research ministers are expected to address the issue when they meet next week in Warsaw. The latest draft of their Warsaw Declaration, seen by Science|Business, says the Commission should “draft its initial proposal for the future Framework Programme building on the indisputable legacy of self-standing Framework Programmes, in close cooperation with the member states.”

The new leadership in Germany – the member state with the largest contribution to the EU budget – has also signalled its preference for a standalone programme. Thomas Jarzombek, parliamentary spokesman on R&D for the Christian Democratic Union, the party which is leading talks for a new governing coalition, has sent a letter to EU research commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva calling on the Commission to reconsider plans to dismember FP10. 

“We view the current idea behind the European Commission's announcement of establishing a Competitiveness Fund without an independent Framework Programme for research and innovation with great concern, as it risks failing to meet the crucial demands outlined in the groundbreaking expert reports by Enrico Letta, Mario Draghi, and Manuel Heitor on research and innovation to close the innovation gap,” Jarzombek said in the letter. 

While a standalone Framework Programme would appear to be written into Article 182 of the EU treaties, there are suspicions that the Commission may be looking into a legal workaround that allows it to fold FP10 into the new Competitiveness Fund.

Back in February, Marc Lemaître, director general for research and innovation at the Commission, said “the Commission will not ignore the treaty.”

However, according to an EU diplomat, the standalone nature of FP10 is very much under threat and the Warsaw Declaration is perhaps the last and best chance to safeguard it. 

MEPs have also thrown their weight behind a “standalone FP10” with a bigger budget. More recently, in amendments submitted to a draft report on the EU’s next multiannual budget, German MEP Christian Ehler said the Parliament should “absolutely oppose any proposal for the Competitiveness Fund to partly or completely take over the role” of FP10.

Science|Business has reached out to the Commission for clarifications on the ongoing negotiations, but a spokesperson declined to “comment on rumours” and said they would be happy to provide more details on FP10 and the EU’s next multiannual budget “once they are officially presented.” 

The Commission is expected to present a proposal for FP10 by July, but the research community fears this will be too late. 

Growing resistance

Concern about the fate of FP10 has been growing for months. Last year, a leaked chart prepared by the Commission’s budget directorate revealed a scenario in which about a dozen research and innovation programmes – some of which are now part of Horizon Europe – would be gathered into the Competitiveness Fund, in an attempt to concentrate and streamline EU efforts to resuscitate innovation, productivity and economic growth. 

The absence of FP10 from the Commission’s Competitiveness Compass strategy has only fuelled fears that there would be no standalone Framework Programme after Horizon Europe.

After months of uncertainty, lobby groups are now intensifying their push for a standalone programme. “The opportunity to really lobby [for] this thing is going to finish at the end of the month,” said Kurt Deketelaere, secretary general of the League of European Research Universities. 

He was speaking today at the publication of an open letter from universities and research institutions across Europe that calls on the Commission to ensure FP10 will not be eaten up by the Competitiveness Fund. “The integrity of FP10 must be safeguarded, to harness the excellent, ground-breaking ideas of our researchers and innovators,” the letter says.

According to Deketelaere, the changes proposed in the leaked budget chart might still be on the table. “The intention of the European Commission, seemingly with exception still of [research] commissioner [Ekaterina] Zaharieva, is not to go for a standalone Framework Programme 10 for research and innovation,” he said.