HORIZON BLOG: Research and innovation in the next EU budget

To move talks along, prime minister Boris Johnson will hold discussions with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday, with both sides hoping it will help clinch a last-minute deal.

Swiss voters have voted to keep their free movement of people agreement with the EU, clearing the way for the country to settle a new trade relationship with Brussels.

In a referendum on Sunday, 61.71 percent of voters rejected a proposal to limit migration from EU countries. Scientists were among the strongest opponents of the referendum, which they said risked a deepening of the economic pain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and a loss of access to EU research programmes.

“We can’t do experiments in a crisis,” said Petra Studer, coordinator of Netzwerk Future, a body representing higher education, research and innovation organisations at the Swiss Parliament.

She said that Swiss voters already suffering in the pandemic had seen the huge uncertainty caused by Brexit, and “didn’t want to go down the same route”. 

Swiss politicians will now try put relations with Brussels on a new footing. Like the UK, Switzerland is in its own difficult negotiation with the EU, being asked to endorse a new treaty that would require it to routinely adopt single market rules.

The EU views this as merely updating and simplifying the Swiss arrangement, which spans a complex web of more than 120 bilateral deals. But the new treaty also includes demands that the Swiss soften rules protecting wages, the highest in Europe, from cross-border competition by EU workers on temporary assignments.

As part of this new trade relationship, Swiss politicians will hope that the vote result strengthens their hand in negotiating access to the EU’s next research programme, Horizon Europe. So far, Brussels has been playing hardball with the Swiss, threatening to block the country from accessing the full programme, which starts next year.