Talks on Britain rejoining the EU’s flagship Horizon scientific research programme are “coming to a head” and are going “constructively”, UK government officials said on Wednesday.
British ministers are hoping to agree a deal on Horizon this month, and one official close to the talks said that “quite a lot has been done” on closing differences on how much the UK should pay into the programme.
“It’s definitely coming to a head,” said another British official. Rishi Sunak, UK prime minister, will have a chance to discuss the issue with Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, on the margins of a Nato summit in Lithuania next week.
The positive signals coming from the UK government have received a warm welcome from British scientists and universities, who view the €95.5bn Horizon scientific collaboration programme as vital to the country’s competitiveness.
British researchers have been excluded since 2020 after their participation was blocked by the commission until a post-Brexit row over Northern Ireland’s trading arrangements was resolved.
With that dispute now settled, the UK Treasury has been in tough talks about the financial terms of “associate membership” of Horizon, given that Britain has lost out on two years of a programme that runs from 2021 to 2027.
Downing Street denied a draft deal with Brussels had been agreed and that Sunak would consider the details over the weekend. “Talks are ongoing and therefore we have not yet agreed a deal,” said the UK government.
The Politico website reported two British officials as saying the deal could be sealed with von der Leyen at the Nato summit, adding that the UK was seeking to rejoin Horizon and the EU’s Copernicus earth observation programme but not the Euratom nuclear scheme.
One British official said staying out of Euratom was “sensible” because it did not offer good value for money.
An EU official said Brussels was not keen to separate Euratom and would like the UK to join all three schemes as envisaged in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the two sides.
Another EU official said talk of a draft deal was being viewed as “UK spin” that was apparently designed to put pressure on von der Leyen to intervene.
The commission said: “We have no comment to make. As foreseen by the [Trade and Cooperation Agreement], we are in discussions with the UK on its participation in EU programmes.”
Negotiations over Horizon have focused partly on the financial “correction mechanism” which determines what happens if the UK extracts significantly less in value from the programme than it contributes in payments, said two people familiar with the talks.
Sir Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute, who led an independent review of science and innovation for the UK government which urged rejoining Horizon, said any deal would be celebrated by scientists in both the UK and across Europe.
“I encourage the prime minister to finalise the agreement without further delay,” he added.
Jamie Arrowsmith, director of Universities UK International, a representative body, said a deal on Horizon would provide “much needed certainty for researchers”.
