European Research Council budget and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions won't be touched!
The positive outcome is that the 500 million saved in Horizon 2020 commitments means that the European Research Council budget and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions, which form the ‘Spreading Excellence and Widening’ pillar of Horizon 2020, have been protected.
This was seen as a bottom line in negotiations and to this extent, negotiators will be pleased to have protected some basic research grants. Furthermore, the success in making the financing mechanism a product of the annual budgetary procedure means that all political groups have committed to working each year in the Budget Committee to minimize the actual money withdrawn from Horizon 2020. We can therefore expect that each year, MEPs will work to find budgetary flexibilities to reduce the money that they commit from Horizon 2020.
