27 / 09 / 2022
EARTO Press Release – 2023 EU Budget Negotiations
This year, the 2023 EU Budget Negotiations started in June with the usual European Commission proposal with a €12.3 billon budget for Horizon Europe with a top-off of €1.8 billon from the NextGenEU recovery fund. As part of the institutional negotiations, the Council presented its position with a cut of €663 million for Horizon Europe. The European Parliament is now left battling the Council to defend the EU RD&I budget. EARTO hereby thanks the European Parliament for its recurrent support to RD&I in each year annual budget negotiations, taking again and again the stand for RD&I budget: thank you for doing so this year again.
Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemics have been clear: RD&I saved the day in more ways than one (See here examples). As emphasis by President von der Leyen in her recent State of the Union’s speech, Europe is now facing in a war at its borders and an energy crisis. Here again technological solutions need to be found quickly for many industrial sectors to become more energy efficient in their operations: as for the pandemic, such solutions will be found thanks to past RD&I investments topped with new ones. With the Green Deal being one of Horizon Europe top priorities, the Council position to reduce Horizon Europe’s budget is simply not justifiable and will be completely counterproductive in today’s geopolitical and economic situation.
Building Europe’s resilience and technology sovereignty in strategic industrial ecosystems will be key to meet the needs of EU citizens and industry in the current crisis. Research and Innovation will be a game-changer to achieve such ambitions. Should Member States be serious about implementing the European Research Area as an effective support to today’s EU industrial policy, the EU RD&I budget should not become a recurrent adjusting factor in the current MFF’s yearly budget negotiations. Should the EU RD&I programme leverage private RD&I investments as expected, trust in the EU system is paramount: a fact that is clearly fairly underestimated by the Council. The EU RD&I budget should now be ring-fenced for the rest of the MFF to ensure Horizon Europe’s stability and keeping trust in the system.
Read the full EARTO Press Release
