EU research ministers set to miss target of deal on Horizon Europe by month's end
EU research ministers will not be able to agree on their position on the next Horizon Europe programme for 2028-2024 at the end of May, falling short of a target set by Cyprus’s presidency of the Council of the EU.
Several sources in the EU institutions told News Tank Academic that member states have dropped the goal of reaching a “partial general agreement” on the file, as too many issues still needed to be resolved.
A partial general agreement means that consensus has been reached on some of the most important points, even if the biggest question of the size of the overall budget for Horizon Europe will only be settled by the negotiations on the 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).
The main obstacles to a partial agreement are the definition of widening countries, i.e., member states with lower research performance, the governance of funding for the European Partnerships, i.e. initiatives designed to strengthen collaboration between public and private sector stakeholders, as well as how the Horizon Europe programme will be coordinated with the new European Competitiveness Fund (ECF).
Researchers are concerned that the importance being given to competitiveness in the EU’s priorities, business priorities will be privileged when deciding research areas and themes.
Failure to reach agreement on Horizon Europe at the end of May means that the next chance for the Council (of the EU’s research ministers) to agree their position will be during Ireland’s presidency of the Council, which runs from 01/07/2026 until the end of the year.
A representative from the Brussels-based research community said that while the delay was not a huge problem in itself, as the new programme was not due to start until 2028, the fact that ministers could not agree on how it would work was a bad sign at a time when the EU was trying to have a more effective research policy.
The Guild says Council needs time to improve Horizon plan
The Guild of Research Intensive Universities stressed the need for getting an agreement by the end of the year so that the new programmes would be in place for the start of 2028. Julien Chicot, the Guild's head of research and innovation policy, said: "If the EU ministers of science do not complete a partial general approach next week, we trust that the Irish presidency could achieve one by the end of the summer."
This meant that the trilogue (negotiations between Council and MEPs) would hopefully start before the end of 2026, unless the European Parliament maintained its decision not to engage in any negotiations before the Council agrees on the total MFF budget. "For universities, it is crucial that the first FP10 calls are published no later than in January 2028. As the European Commission will need some months to implement the new regulations and Council decision, we call for the EU institutions to strike an agreement before Summer 2027 at the latest," Chicot said.
He commented that the European Commission had introduced several "novelties" in its proposals in July 2025, including the European Competitiveness Fund to be tightly connected to FP10. "But it did not deliver the Competitiveness Coordination Tool that should have specified these connections. Additionally, for the sake of simplicity, provisions were removed. In fact, this has often affected the legal clarity of the proposed regulation," he said.
For that reason, it was not surprising that the research working party [in the Council] "needs time to make sense of the Commission’s proposal and improve it".
To discover all our content, subscribe now
Join our subscriber community by selecting your preferred subscription plan (monthly or annual) or try it for free for 30-day.