Israel has started its participation in the landmark EU Horizon 2020 program for research and innovation, which is expected to bring over two billion dollars into Israel for scientific research and allow the country to be part of the international arena of present and future science and technology.
Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU research and innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion (($107 billion) of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020) – in addition to the private investment that this money will attract. It promises more breakthroughs, discoveries and world-firsts by taking great ideas from the lab to the market.
Horizon 2020 is the financial instrument implementing the Innovation Union, a Europe 2020 flagship initiative aimed at securing Europe's global competitiveness.
It is seen as a mean to drive economic growth and create jobs.
The goal is to ensure Europe produces world-class science, removes barriers to innovation and makes it easier for the public and private sectors to work together in delivering innovation
But Israel’s participation in the program had been jeopardized last year when the EU Commission published new guidelines barring any EU funds going to ventures located beyond the Green Line (the 1949 Armistice line) including east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
The Israeli government called the new rules ‘’unacceptable’’ and threatened not to participate in Horizon 2020 but after several weeks of negotiations in Jerusalem and in Brussels, Israel and the EU “agreed to disagree,” with Israel publishing its reservations in an appendix.
As one Israeli official put it: ‘'Both sides understood that the other side has a different position on the politics, but there is an understanding that there is a mutual interest to cooperate in the issues of science and technologies.’’
In the agreement, the EU prohibition of funds for entities operating beyond the Green Line is referenced in an appendix to the deal, while in another appendix Israel states that it does not recognize the new EU guidelines. Israeli companies and organizations that have operations beyond the Green Line will be able to request funds in Horizon 2020, provided that the money does not cross the pre-1967 border.
'The agreement fully respects the EU's financial requirements while at the same time respects Israel's political sensitivities and preserving its principled positions,' said last November EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni in a joint statement.
Horizon 2020's billions of euros of research funding are essential to Israel, with the science and technology ministry fearing the dispute would have resulted in Israel's research funding being cut by 40%. In its participation under the last EU research framework programme, the FP7, Israel received €634 million ($857 million) of funding.