European Commission budget proposals: good but not good enough

The League of European Research Universities (LERU) welcomes the new European Commission (EC) proposal for the Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021-2027 and "Next Generation EU", the new EU ‘Covid-19’ recovery instrument. The recovery plan is a balanced package, making a compromise possible between the North, South, East and West in the EU. At the same time, it is a historic proposal: an intervention of this size has never been seen in the history of the EU. Of course, it is absolutely necessary: a health issue has created an unbelievable economic, social, financial and logistical tsunami, which needs strong answers underpinned by strong scientific evidence. 

A swift decision on this plan by the European Council and the European Parliament (EP) is now of the utmost importance, since the present MFF expires at the end of this year and the current economic crisis is deepening by the day. Only once the package is agreed upon, new programmes like Horizon Europe (HE) and Erasmus can be adopted, and for a smooth start on 1 January 2021 this needs to be done as soon as possible.

At first sight, the newly proposed budget for HE (€94.4 billion), is very similar to the original 2018 proposal (€94.1 billion). However, taking into account the typical EC juggling with prices (current versus 2018 prices), the new proposal seems a step in the right direction, going, in current prices, from €94.1 billion in May 2018 to €106.4 billion in May 2020. Considering the HE budget went down considerably in European Council discussions last winter (to €80 billion), it is clear that Commissioner Mariya Gabriel's hard work has paid off by pushing research and innovation back to the top of the EU priority ladder. However, the HE budget is a very long way from the €160 billion LERU called for over the past years and is also still quite far from the €120 billion asked for by the EP.

Regardless of the "prices" issue in the HE budget, the €94.4 billion itself needs clarification: The budget table in the new MFF proposal indicates that of the €94.4 billion, €13.5 billion comes under the “EU Next Generation” package. But it is not clear at all what this means. Will all or most health, climate and digital-related research in HE be funded using this €13.5 billion? Or is this budget to fund additional research and innovation in these areas? Both options have a very different but considerable impact on the other, very important parts of Horizon Europe. 

Other puzzling questions remain: Is the €13.5 billion the only “reinforcement” of HE or is more to be expected? And how will the new Health Programme or new initiatives regarding climate change, energy and digital research and innovation relate to their corresponding clusters in Horizon Europe? Also the budget of the next Erasmus programme needs clarification. Even though it is a decrease compared to what the EC proposed in May 2018 (namely the €27.89 billion now proposed compared to €30.00 billion in May 2018), the new MFF communication strangely mentions an increase of €3.4 billion. On all of these issues, LERU urgently requests more clarity from the EC. 

To conclude, for the HE budget, the same old story continues: good, but not good enough. The same goes for the Erasmus budget. Member States and the European Parliament should now join forces, with strong support from stakeholders like LERU, so that the announced "reinforcement" of Horizon Europe as well as a true increase of the Erasmus budget becomes a reality. If the past ten weeks have proven anything, it is that R&I is one of the essential keys for solving our global problems and that investment in education is vastly needed. It all starts with an appropriate budget. Meanwhile, we look forward to more insights on the EC proposals and their (budgetary) disentanglement. They must come very soon! Speed is of the essence, to recover from Covid-19, restart our economies and have a smooth start for the new programmes in January 2021!

Contact:

Policy enquiries: 

•  Prof. Kurt Deketelaere, LERU Secretary-General,  or +32 499 80 89 99
•  Laura Keustermans, LERU Policy Officer,  or +32 476 97 73 04

 Media enquiries: Bart Valkenaers, LERU Policy Officer,  or +32 498 08 43 49