19 / 03 / 2020


Impact of COVID-19 crisis on EARTO & EU Programmes

Due to the global concerns regarding the COVID-19 outbreak, many EU countries including Belgium have now established restrictive measures to the circulation of persons and to the organisation of events of any size. As most of you, the EARTO Secretariat is currently working remotely but will keep providing the usual services and updates on dossiers. We all can be reached by email and by phone (please find contact information.   Due to the global concerns regarding the COVID-19 outbreak, many EU countries including Belgium have now established restrictive measures to the circulation of persons and to the organisation of events of any size. As most of you, the EARTO Secretariat is currently working remotely but will keep providing the usual services and updates on dossiers. We all can be reached by email and by phone (please find contact information here).   The situation also impacts the work of EU Institutions:
  • The European Parliament is working solely on parliamentary matters, all events and access for visitors have been closed.
  • The European Commission is mostly working remotely: please note that the new phone system at the EC has issue tackling the heavy teleworking to date so if you cannot reach your contact at the EC, we advise you to ask for mobile phone or try reaching out by email first.
  • The EC has already announced that H2020 Calls with original deadlines up to 15 April will be extended (except for those on IMI and EIC Pilot Calls).
  • Further information will be published on the Funding and Tenders Portal as well as on DG RTD website.
  • Two new H2020 FAQs have already been published on the clause on force majeure and on the extended call deadlines.
  The EC is working on giving as much information as possible while adjusting to the crisis, which could take some time to run smoothly. EARTO will be glad to ask the EC for more precise information to help its members when the time comes: let’s leave some time to the EC to organise itself with its Agencies. The EARTO Secretariat will keep its monitoring to provide you with the most recent updates.