Brussels-London relations are at an all-time high at the moment – if you pretend that their history began in 2016 with the Brexit vote – fuelled largely by the UK government’s recent success in putting the Northern Ireland Protocol issue to bed (for now).
That post-Brexit trading regime spat had gummed up the works completely, prompting Brussels to put Horizon Europe talks on hold until both sides could agree on a deal that respects the Good Friday Agreement and the realities of leaving the EU.
Horizon is one of the few programmes that the UK wanted to cherry-pick during the drawn out withdrawal negotiations, elevating it above the Erasmus student exchange scheme and the Galileo global positioning network.
With nearly €100bn up for grabs over the funding period, Horizon is an impressive research war chest that allows scientists, developers and experts from a broad range of disciplines to collaborate on a wide array of different projects.
Brussels is currently...