On 1 December 2017, the Competitiveness Council adopted its conclusions ‘From the Interim Evaluation of Horizon 2020 towards the ninth Framework Programme’. As mentioned in the LERU press release “The elephants in the FP9 room: Budget & Brexit”, LERU welcomes the conclusions. We agree with many of the points made or issues raised in the conclusions. However, it is not always clear what the Council means due to a lack of detail. This policy brief provides an overview of those points in the Council conclusions that LERU considers to be important, and of those that need clarification or amending in future Council positions on FP9.