Billions of euros in EU research cash should be used for civilian projects that have a military use case to keep the bloc competitive in emerging space and digital technologies, Denmark’s research minister Christina Egelund told Euractiv.
Efforts to rearm Europe, and wean governments off foreign AI providers and Elon Musk’s satellite system Starlink, have centred attention on how the EU’s future €175 billion flagship research programme Horizon is deployed. That sparked calls to broaden the eligibility criteria from the sciences and humanities to technologies with a potential military application – dubbed dual-use.
“I think insisting on only a civil use of the European research programme is unfortunately a luxury that we can no longer afford in the current situation,” Egelund said in an interview after chairing a meeting of her colleagues in Brussels this week.
During the ministerial meeting, a large majority said they were in favour of opening up Horizon Europe to funding dual-use research. But ministers were more resistant to allowing the finance pot to be used for purely defence-related projects, with Germany and Austria in particular against such a plan.
Research Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva said on Tuesday that research with a pure defence application would be covered by the European Competitiveness Fund.
Asked if it was realistic to open the fund to exclusively military projects, Egelund said it’s too early to say, but added that Horizon must “be open to the reality of the geopolitical changes”, in reference to the idea to open the fund to dual-use project funding.
Long time coming
The Commission first pitched shifting Horizon’s scope to include dual-use when it made its first proposal for the 2028-2034 budget in July.
However, academics strongly opposed the prospect of the defence industry cannibalising civilian-purpose funds and the budget is still open to significant debate before its details are closed.
The EU already has a separate defence research facility, the European Defence Fund, which the Commission proposes to roll a dedicated European Competitiveness Fund in the next EU budget.
Egelund said parts of Horizon could also be fenced off for specifically civilian only or dual-use projects, with discussion also needed around access to financing from researchers and institutions outside the EU.
When asked how to balance building European technological independence with a reliance on existing technologies coming from outside the EU, Egelund said “there is an urgent need for us to stand on our own” when it comes to certain industries, citing AI, quantum, and space.
Egelund also suggested investing “strategically” in these critical technologies, adding biotech to the list.
Military research would have to face stricter criteria for collaboration than civilian research, she said, considering the risks associated with sharing information between non-EU researchers and companies.
During the ministerial meeting, several countries raised the issue of sharing sensitive data with foreigners.
Kjeld Neubert contributed to reporting
(jp, nl, cp)
