The European Union‘s research money fight is going down to the wire. The stakes are high: about €125bn in extra research spending, and who gets to control it. All eyes are on the next multi-year EU budget, and MEPs and the European Commission are at loggerheads.

How centralised should the European research scene be, around what priorities, and who gets to call the shots? These thorny issues were at the heart of last week‘s debate during the ITRE committee regular Brussels session. The MEPs, the European Commissioner, and representatives of the research community presented radically different visions of the matter in question.

Unlike the research itself, the point of the dispute was no rocket science. The Commission is under increasing pressure to boost the Union’s research activities in order to close the growing innovation gap between Europe and its American and Chinese competitors. In response to the pressure – and drawing on last year’s Draghi report on European competitiveness – the Commission aims to centralise the activities.

At the moment, the scene is somewhat convoluted. Roughly speaking, most of the EU research spending is divided among two more or less directly competing institutions, the European Research Council and the European Innovation Council (established in 2007 and 2021, respectively). While the former is fiercely independent, allocating grants based solely on scientific excellence, the EIC is more or less doing the Commission’s bidding.

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Research and strategic interests

Both institutions draw most of their funding from a programme called Horizon Europe. In the current period of 2021-2027, the ERC operates on a €16bn budget, while the EIC (2021) is running on a budget of €10bn.

The new Commission has proposed two things. First, it aims to bundle all research activities under the roof of the proposed European Competitiveness Fund, a tool devised specifically to support the Competitiveness Compass, the second von der Leyen Commission’s flagship project.

Second, it has been seen to apply pressure to the ERC to align the latter’s work more closely with the Commission’s political ends. The ERC appeared to be under threat last month when the wording of the European Commission’s Competitiveness Compass suggested that the ERC would need to operate “along the same strategic interests” as the European Innovation Council.

Marc Lemaître, the Commission’s director general for research and innovation, fuelled the perception. Earlier this month, he was quoted as saying that “the ERC is not living in a vacuum.” It has an „essential role to play for society, and I have no doubt that it is listening to the evolving demands from society, and today, yes, competitiveness is very high on that list,“ he said.

Mounting dissent

Not everybody is on board. Last Wednesday’s meeting of the ITRE committee adopted a report on „the implementation of the Horizon Europe programme with regard to its interim evaluation“ and presented recommendations for the future. (The plenary vote on this report is scheduled for 11 March 2025.)

The report was presented by Christian Ehler MEP (EPP/DE), a widely respected voice on research matters within the community. He made it clear that the Horizon Europe research programme (dubbed FP10 in the Eurocrat parlance) should remain independent. He said the report presented “a strong stance against integrating the budget for Research and Innovation in a broader Competitiveness Fund.”

Instead, he appealed to the Commission to more than double the current research budget of Horizon Europe (from €93bn to €220bn) in the next decade. Mr Ehler’s arguments find some support in the fact that while the EU invested 2.24% of its GDP in R&D in 2022, the United States and China allocated 3.5% and 2.4%, respectively.

The debate about the Multiannual Financial Framework (as it is known in Brussels) for 2028-2034 will kick off in July, presented by the Commission. The positioning has begun well in advance.

Mr Ehler debate counterparts included Maria Leptin, head of the European Research Council. She joined him both in the defiant mode towards the Commission’s ideas, and in the appeal for more funding. “Standardised bureaucratic processes designed for other programmes should not be imposed on the ERC,” she told MEPs. “My message today is simple: an independent ERC with a doubled budget in the next MFF is a strategic investment. Our simple, tailored procedures allow Europe’s best researchers to thrive,” Ms Leptin said.

The fight is on

On the receiving end of the complaints, the EU executive was represented by Ekaterina Zaharieva, Commissioner for startups, research, and innovation. She came to present the Commission’s take on the issues, and did so in a manner that may be perceived as less than effective.

Ms Zaharieva, whose level of expertise raised some questions during her confirmation hearings last year, appeared uncomfortable at times. She read her opening remarks in the somewhat bewildered way one would read a text hitherto unknown. In her responses to the MEPs‘ questions, she tended to come across as scripted.

As expected, the Commissioner’s arguments left most MEPs unconvinced. That notwithstanding, the fight to control future research spending is now officially on. The heavyweights are yet to arrive to the scene. As Mr Ehler himself put it bluntly in January: „It’s the member state leaders who will decide about the MFF, so it’s them who should be lobbied.“