‘Good news for science’: EU chief says Brexit deal means UK can join Horizon

Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal with the EU was hailed as “good news” for scientists, as European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen revealed she wanted to ratify UK membership of the Horizon scheme.

Britain’s membership of the £80bn continent-wide research programme has been on hold ever since Brexit, with Tory ministers vowing to go alone and set up an independent scheme.

But Ms Von der Leyen said the Northern Ireland Protocol deal announced today would mean she would start work on an agreement for UK membership “immediately” after it is implemented.

“This agreement is good news for scientists and researchers, in the European Union and the UK,” said the Commission president at the press conference in Windsor.

“Because the moment we have finished this agreement – at the moment its an agreement in principle – once it’s implemented I am happy to start immediately, right now, the work on an association agreement, the pre-condition to join Horizon Europe.”

Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal was meant to keep the UK in Horizon, but his plans to tear up the protocol unilaterally blocked talks.

Over the last six-year period of the Horizon scheme, finishing in 2020, the UK received £1.5bn – more than any other country and a fifth of the total handed out by Brussels.

Earlier this month the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CASE) group has claimed that £1.6bn of the funding the Tory government promised for research had gone back to the Treasury.

Mr Sunak hailed the “historic” Windsor Framework deal struck on Monday, saying there was now a range of “difficult areas” to work on with the EU – citing Russia sanctions, energy security, climate change and illegal migration.

No 10 hopes that a post-Brexit deal can make agreements with France and other EU countries on the rise in small boats crossings in the English Channel, with Mr Sunak set to meet French president Emmanuel Macron next month.

The Best for Britain campaign group said it was “hugely welcome news that negotiations can open for the UK to return to Horizon”.

The PM said GB goods destined for NI will travel through new “green lane” in which customs bureaucracy will be scrapped, with a red lane for goods destined for the Republic of Ireland. The PM claimed it ended any sense of a “border in the Irish Sea”.

He also said the deal “protects Northern Ireland’s place in the union” – handing over powers of VAT and alcohol duty from the EU to the UK.

Another key part of it is an “emergency brake” on changes to EU goods rules that can be pulled by the Northern Ireland Assembly, that Mr Sunak said would give the UK government a “veto”.

But MPs have not yet been able to study the full detail of the role for the European Court of Justice, EU state aid rules and other Brussels regulations which could remain in place in the province.