By Carsten Ovens, CEO of the European Leadership Network (ELNET) for Germany, Austria and Switzerland
Published on
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.
Hardly any programme embodies Europe’s ambition to be a continent of knowledge as clearly as Horizon Europe. Around 95 billion Euros have been earmarked by the EU between 2021 and 2027 to bring together leading minds, universities and technology companies. The guiding principle is that scientific excellence and innovative potential decide who receives funding, not nationality or the political climate.
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This promise has been under constant fire for more than a year.
In July 2025, the European Commission proposed excluding Israeli start-ups from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator, the part of the programme that supports companies with disruptive technologies such as AI, cyber security and drone technology. Participation by Israeli universities and researchers in other Horizon projects was initially to remain untouched. Politically, however, the move would have set a precedent: never before would the EU have excluded a high-performing partner from a central innovation instrument because of its government.
European Commission puts Israeli start-up exclusion on hold
To this day the proposal has not secured a qualified majority in the Council. Germany and Italy called for a more in-depth review, while several Central and Eastern European states rejected it outright.
France, the Netherlands and Spain, by contrast, were among those governments that felt the proposal did not go far enough in light of the situation in Gaza. Spain, together with Ireland, had already demanded a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement in 2024 and went on to call for the suspension of all joint programmes in the summer of 2025.
The proposal has since been put on ice, but it is far from off the table. It reappears with every new escalation in Gaza. And it confronts a European Union that is currently negotiating its next framework programme for research: from 2028, the 10th funding period (FP10) is meant to shape Europe’s innovation policy through to 2034. These talks also cover the general conditions under which third countries will be able to take part in future. This question is gaining additional urgency against the backdrop of the political dispute over Israel.
Criticism of the Israeli government is legitimate. The humanitarian situation in conflict regions in the Middle East should also be a concern of European policy. But sanctions against Israeli scientists and universities protect no one, anywhere, from Islamist terrorism, nor do they improve anyone’s quality of life. The damage to science, however, would very quickly become concrete and measurable, above all in Europe.
Excluding Israel would undermine Europe’s own innovative strength
Within Horizon Europe, Israeli partners are not isolated recipients of money but part of multinational consortia in which European universities, research centres and companies carry out joint research and development. Between 2021 and 2024, Israeli universities, institutes and businesses raised more than one billion euros from Horizon Europe, while Israel itself contributed around 1.7 billion euros.
The country is therefore a net contributor, not a net recipient.
If an Israeli partner were excluded, it would not simply mean one less line in a Brussels funding table. Consortia would lose technical expertise, intellectual property, test facilities, clinical data or access to one of the most dynamic start-up ecosystems in the world. Projects would have to be reconstituted, work packages redistributed or abandoned altogether.
Institutes in Hamburg, Paris, Barcelona, Leuven or Warsaw would be left to absorb the costs. Any European government that calls for Israel to be excluded is directly harming its own universities.
Europe’s business sector, which relies heavily on Israeli innovation, would also suffer.
In the case of the EIC Accelerator, Israel was the third-largest recipient in 2024 after Germany and France. In that year alone, more than 100 million euros went to Israeli deep-tech start-ups. The start-up nation itself invests more than six per cent of its gross domestic product in research and development, more than three times the EU average. Around 450 international companies, including Renault, SAP and Telefónica, therefore maintain research centres in the country.
Europe must now set the course
European and Israeli teams work together on personalised cancer therapies, water-saving agriculture, robotics, quantum technologies and resilient digital infrastructures. At the Technion, the Weizmann Institute and the Hebrew University, these collaborations produce not only academic publications but also patents, spin-offs and marketable applications, precisely the translation of science into innovation that Europe so often struggles to achieve. This is where Israel is particularly strong. Excluding the country would not remedy Europe’s structural weakness, it would make it worse.
A key decision lies ahead. FP10 will shape Europe’s research and innovation policy until 2034. If Europe wants to catch up with the US and China in AI, biotechnology and quantum technology, Israel’s full participation needs to be secured early on instead of being turned into a bargaining chip every time tensions flare up again in the Middle East.
The governments in Dublin, Paris and Madrid should therefore not only ask themselves how they might gain domestically from excluding Israel. They also need to explain to their own universities and businesses what scientific and economic price their country would have to pay. FP10 must remain a programme based on excellence, not an instrument of shifting political majorities.
Israel must continue to be an unrestricted part of the European research area from 2028 to 2034, in our own interest and as an investment in Europe’s future.
Carsten Ovens (CDU) is the CEO of the European Leadership Network (ELNET) for Germany, Austria and Switzerland and a former member of the Hamburg state parliament. In 2020, together with ELNET, he co-founded the German Israeli Network of Startups & Mittelstand, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs. A year later, he also co-founded the German Israeli Health Forum for Artificial Intelligence, backed by the Federal Ministry of Health.