LONDON (AP) 鈥 Britain is rejoining the European Union鈥檚 $100 billion science-sharing program Horizon Europe, the two sides announced Thursday, more than two years after the country's membership became a casualty of Brexit.
British scientists expressed relief at the decision, the latest sign of thawing relations between the EU and its former member nation.
After months of negotiations, the British government said the country was becoming a 鈥渇ully associated member鈥 of the research collaboration body U.K.-based scientists can bid for Horizon funding starting Thursday and will be able to lead Horizon-backed science projects starting in 2024. Britain is also rejoining Copernicus, the EU space program鈥檚 Earth observation component.
鈥淭he EU and U.K. are key strategic partners and allies, and today鈥檚 agreement proves that point,鈥 said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who signed off on the deal during a call with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday. 鈥淲e will continue to be at the forefront of global science and research.鈥
The EU blocked Britain from Horizon during a feud over trade rules for Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that shares a border with an EU member, the Republic of Ireland.
The two sides struck in February, but Horizon negotiations have dragged on over details of how much the U.K. will pay for its membership.
Sunak said he had struck the 鈥渞ight deal for British taxpayers.鈥 The EU said Britain would pay almost 2.6 billion euros ($2.8 billion) a year on average for Copernicus and Horizon. The U.K. will not have to pay for the period it was frozen out of the science-sharing program, which has a 95.5 billion-euro budget ($102 billion) for the 2021-27 period.
Relations between Britain and the bloc were severely tested during the long divorce negotiations that followed Britain鈥檚 2016 vote to leave the EU. The divorce became final in 2020 with the agreement of a bare-bones trade and cooperation deal, but relations chilled still further under strongly pro-Brexit U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Johnson鈥檚 government introduced a bill that would let it unilaterally rip up parts of the Brexit agreement, a move the EU called illegal.
Johnson left office amid scandal in mid-2022, and Sunak鈥檚 government has quietly worked to improve Britain鈥檚 relationship with its European neighbors, though trade friction and deep-rooted mistrust still linger.
British scientists, who feared Brexit would hurt international research collaboration, breathed sighs of relief at the Horizon deal.
鈥淭his is an essential step in rebuilding and strengthening our global scientific standing,鈥 said Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute for biomedical research. 鈥淭hank you to the huge number of researchers in the U.K. and across Europe who, over many years, didn鈥檛 give up on stressing the importance of international collaboration for science.鈥
The U.K.鈥檚 opposition Labour Party welcomed the deal but said Britain had already missed out on 鈥渢wo years鈥 worth of innovation.鈥
鈥淭wo years of global companies looking around the world for where to base their research centers and choosing other countries than Britain, because we are not part of Horizon,鈥 said Labour science spokesman Peter Kyle. 鈥淭his is two years of wasted opportunity for us as a country.鈥
