On the eve of a crucial meeting of the European foreign Council to discuss the possible suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, academic organisations in six European countries which participate in the Horizon Europe programme have called on the EU to suspend Israeli’s participation in the current EU research programme Horizon Europe.
The organisations are AFP (Ireland), AURDIP (France), BA4P (Belgium), BRICUP (UK), Dutch Scholars for Palestine (Netherlands) and RUXP (Spain).
The call, in an Open Letter to Ekaterina Zaharieva (EU Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation), is also endorsed by the European Co-ordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCP).
Professor Ivar Ekeland, Former President of Université Paris-Dauphine and member of the
Academia Europe, said on behalf of AURDIP:
“As if History keeps on repeating its darkest moments, we are as European once more confronted with our complicity with a genocide. Each genocide has its own unique features. That of the Palestinians of Gaza is to be the first one in history to be daily livestreamed by themselves while international journalists are denied access. For now almost 2 years, the whole world has been witnessing deliberate bombing and starvation of civilians, killing a high proportion of children and women, targeting of civil infrastructure including schools and hospitals, all of which manifest as clear characterstics of genocide with intent to ‘destroy a group as a whole or part’”.
Jonathan Rosenhead (Emeritus professor, London School of Economics) said on behalf of BRICUP:
“We, as concerned European academics, have been calling the responsible EU officials including the EU Commissioner for Innovation and Research to suspend Israel from the Horizon program since the current genocide began. For a decade, academics have been warning about the grave risks of EU research funding being used in the decades of repression of the Palestinian people. Recently more evidence emerged confirming the concerns that these resources massively fund the development of dual-use technologies deployed by Israel in violation of international law. The warning has been ignored, and now the EU’s complicity involves genocide, one of the gravest crimes.”
The group of academics has recently carried out detailed analysis of documents obtained from the EU via the Freedom of Information Act. Despite the responses being heavily redacted, they have concluded that “many projects involving Israeli partners such as arms manufacturers and the Israeli Ministry of Defense have been receiving funding as a result of flawed ethics oversight. We also identified clear patterns indicating that the mechanisms in place that EU claims to guarantee ethical integrity and compliance with international law and contractual obligations deliberately ignored the dual-use nature of the projects and misuse risks.”
“We conclude that the EU, via its research funding programs (on the top of allowing the flow of arms made in the EU), is knowingly contributing to the crimes of occupation, apartheid and genocide, for which it will remain indefinitely liable.
We therefore demand that on 15 July the EU ends its complicity by deciding to:
• Immediately suspend Israel from the Trade part of the Association Agreement that includes the Horizon Europe programme,
• Start an independent investigation into the past and future human rights impact of the EU research funding,
• Take the lead in supporting the reconstruction of Gaza’s education and health systems, including actively facilitating the continued education and training of Palestinian students and academics.”