Hopes have been raised that the UK will soon rejoin Horizon Europe after media reports that British and EU negotiators have agreed a draft deal on Britain’s return to the €95 billion (£80 billion) research scheme.
According to a story on the Politico website, officials from Whitehall and Brussels have hammered out an outline deal on the cost of the UK’s participation in Horizon Europe, which will be presented to Rishi Sunak over the weekend.
The draft deal comes ahead of a meeting between the UK prime minister and the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, on 11 July when the final agreement might be confirmed, said Politico, which had spoken to two government officials involved in the deal.
Under the proposed deal, the UK will join Horizon Europe – the seven-year framework that began in 2021 – and the Copernicus Earth observation programme, but not Euratom’s nuclear energy scheme, which was deemed “poor value for money”, according to the quoted official.
