Warning over H2020 payment appropriations
The European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, has asked MEPs for support regarding 2015 Horizon 2020 funding.
During a plenary session in Strasbourg, the European Commissioner said EU research and innovation had suffered a “recurrent and accumulating lack” of payment appropriations, a situation that had worsened under Horizon 2020. She said that the research and innovation framework programme, the biggest in the EU’s history, was now facing a lack of funding in 2015.
“Concretely, for 2014, and despite the implementation of these measures, an additional €230m requested through Draft Amending Budget 3/2014 is urgently needed before the end of the year for the research DGs to avoid payment delays,” Geoghegan-Quinn said.
“In addition to this already challenging situation, I must signal the ‘sword of Damocles’ that is hanging over Horizon 2020 in the 2015 budget: the proposed 10% cut on the Commission’s draft budget for research payment appropriations, representing a €1bn budget decrease for the research budget, would lead to a situation where research DGs could fail in their contractual obligations to thousands of research beneficiaries. In practical terms, as European Budget Commissioner Jacek Dominik already mentioned… around 600 collaborative projects under Horizon 2020 would be affected, involving more than 7,000 participations, of which around 1,400 are SMEs.”
The European Commissioner reminded MEPs that despite an increase in R&D payments in 2014 compared to 2013, this year was a “highly atypical year” regarding payment appropriations.
“Indeed, in 2014, due to the phasing in of Horizon 2020, some 15% less is budgeted by comparison with 2013.”
Geoghegan-Quinn said that any cut to Horizon 2020 spending in 2015 would also affect the Digital Agenda programme, the energy technologies plan, the EU’s climate change policies and the wider Europe 2020 strategy.
