Brexit: UK drawing up plans to deny EU £15bn if there is no NI settlement : CityAM
The UK is preparing to withdraw from major EU research programmes and deny Brussels £15bn if the row over the Northern Ireland Protocol is not resolved.
The government is looking at alternatives to the EU’s Horizon Europe, Copernicus and Euratom programmes, which Brussels has blocked the UK from joining despite assurances in the post-Brexit divorce treaty.
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The Brexit Withdrawal Agreement included provisions for the UK to take part in the three programmes, which are the EU’s €90bn (£77bn) scientific, sattelite and nuclear schemes.
The UK is supposed to be contributing just under £15bn to the Horizon programme and in return British businesses, researchers and universities would be able to apply for grants.
The EU’s research commissioner Mariya Gabriel says this will be blocked until there is an agreement on how to implement the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Negotiations over the post-Brexit treaty continue to drag on, with the UK still threatening to trigger Article 16 and suspend the protocol if Brussels does not agree to rewrite it entirely.
The Sunday Telegraph reports that a paper drawing up alternatives to Horizon is being circulated around Whitehall, with government figures concerned that the UK’s late entry will soon not provide value for money.
The document said that while Boris Johnson’s Brexit minister Lord David Frost is looking to de-escalate the row that departments should draw up “alternatives to each programme in case association should not prove possible to a satisfactory timeline”.
A senior government source told the paper: “Blocking the UK from joining Horizon is in no one’s interest – we can’t participate and they lose out our financial contribution. We’re having to look at alternatives in case the EU does block our access, which would be a breach of what we agreed less than a year ago.”
One alternative being looked at by Frost is being called the Discovery Fund and could launch by next year if the UK does not enter Horizon.
British universities and researchers have begun to voice their concerns about the delay and have called for answers from the EU.
Gabriel said last month that the EU was waiting on “transversal” political issues to be resolved, referring to negotiations over the post-Brexit Northern Ireland Protocol.
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“I really hope [researchers] will keep their passion and patience,” Gabriel said.