Following the agreement reached yesterday after a five-day summit, the European Council has decided to scale back the budget allocated to research and innovation.

In this regard, a significant cut has been made to the budget for Horizon Europe, the new European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation for the 2021-2027 period, which will replace the Horizon 2020 programme.

The total financial allocation for Horizon Europe will be €80.9 billion in 2018 prices, of which 75.9 will come from the common budget and the remaining 5 from the new Recovery Instrument. The von der Leyen Commission's proposal was for €94.4 billion, of which 80.9 would have come from the common budget and 13.5 from the Recovery Instrument. Compared to this proposal, the cut is therefore significant: -€13.5 billion, which corresponds to a 14.3% reduction of the budget proposed by the Commission.

From a legislative perspective, the next step to finalise the agreement will be its approval by the European Parliament: this is expected to take place after the summer.

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