AJC welcomes EU-Israel agreement on H2020

Global Jewish Advocacy (AJC) have welcomed the announcement that Israel will join Horizon 2020. Under the co-operative agreement, Israel will contribute €500m and could receive upwards of €1.4bn in support of research and innovation projects over the next seven years.

Daniel Schwammenthal, director of the AJC Transatlantic Institute, said: “Participation in Horizon 2020 is an important step forward in Israel’s relations with the EU. Given Israel’s standing as a leading centre of research and innovation, this is clearly a win for all involved.”

Negotiations between the EU and Israel had reached an impasse on Monday over the EU’s Settlement Guidelines to prevent its funding from reaching disputed areas. The guidelines are scheduled to go into effect on 1 January 2014.

The EU had rejected a compromise proposal from Israel, forcing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to order senior officials to continue negotiations until a solution was reached. It was then announced that “the agreement fully respects the EU’s legal and financial requirements while at the same time respecting Israel’s political sensitivities and preserving its principled positions”.

Schwammenthal added: “The EU guidelines, which created an artificial boundary to what was to be defined as Israel, effectively established a territorial solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without the participation of either main party. Final borders are to be determined in direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.”