After a tough struggle and more than four days, the 27 heads of state of the European Union agreed on the largest budget and financial package in its history: the next EU general budget for the years 2021 to 2027 amounts to \u20ac1.82 trillion. Of that, \u20ac750 billion is earmarked for a recovery plan addressing the economic consequences of the corona pandemic. \u20ac390 billion is in the form of grants, \u20ac360 billion in loans. The so-called “Frugal Four” -the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and Austria -pushed through a compromise to reduce the proportion of grants that won’t have to be repaid down from the \u20ac500 billion originally planned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This \u20ac750 billion package will be used to finance programs for companies, regions, farmers, and also research. Before the summit, \u20ac13.5 billion from this one-off pandemic fund was to be allocated to Horizon Europe,<\/a> the European Commission’s program for research and education. Ultimately, less than half of that amount ended up on the table: \u20ac5 billion. A total of \u20ac94.4 billion was budgeted for Horizon Europe before the summit. Following several cuts, the final figure is now \u20ac80.9 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What’s more, the European Parliament also has a say. This means that the battle for more research funds will in future be fought on three EU fronts: the Parliament, the Commission, and the Council. The European Commission\u2019s unit head for research budget and long-term budget synergies, Paul Webb, tweeted during the negotiations that he found it “disturbing that [Horizon Europe] seems to be the cash cow in the [budget] negotiations.” <\/p>\n\n\n\nEU Parliament has a say in the matter<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
University advocates were also up in arms and twittered feverishly over the weekend. They called for more research money to be made available as part of the European pandemic fund. “EU leaders need to urgently wake up<\/strong> and save the bloc\u2019s research budget from a \u201cdismantling\u201d at today\u2019s crunch EU leaders\u2019 summit,” said Marta Agostinho, coordinator of EU-Life<\/a> an alliance of 14 life science research institutes. “In a time when politicians and citizens look to science to find the miraculous solution to the COVID-19 crisis, the top leaders decide to cut the research budget \u2013 how insane is this?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n