On the proposal for a Council regulation establishing the research and training programme of the European Atomic Energy Community for the period… 2028-2032, complementing Horizon Europe, the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, and providing for the Community’s contribution to the ITER project, and repealing Regulation (Euratom) 2025/1304

for the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing the research and training programme of the European Atomic Energy Community for the period 2028-2032, complementing Horizon Europe, the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, and providing for the Community’s contribution to the ITER project, and repealing Regulation (Euratom) 2025/1304

(COM (2025)0594 – C100217/2025 – 2025/0594(NLE))

The Committee on Budgets has carried out a budgetary assessment of the proposal under Rule 58 of the Rules of Procedure and has reached the following conclusions:

The Committee on Budgets,

A.whereas the Draghi report identifies research and innovation as one of the main drivers behind productivity and people’s well-being, capable of generating positive externalities and supporting the EU’s strategic autonomy and social model; whereas the report recognises nuclear energy as an essential part of Europe’s energy mix to drive decarbonisation, enhance energy security, and maintain cost affordable energy, competitiveness for European companies and technological leadership; whereas the programme and its participants are vital for maximising industrial, technological and employment returns on European investments by fostering greater participation in Euratom and international thermonuclear experimental reactor (ITER) project supply chains for European companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and mid-caps;

B.whereas the Commission’s ex ante evaluation of the Euratom research and training programme (Euratom programme) highlights that, in order to address the energy security challenges facing the EU, and in view of meeting the EU’s decarbonisation targets, the Euratom programme must be reinforced in terms of budget and measures to enhance innovation and skills in the field of nuclear science and technology for both power and non-power applications;

C.whereas the fusion for energy (F4E) joint undertaking delivers the EU’s contribution to the ITER project; whereas the 13th annual assessment of F4E found positive impacts generated by ITER as a catalyst for research, technological upgrading and cross-sector innovation in high-tech industry, as well as in terms of additional gross value added, job creation across EU Member States and Switzerland, and scientific publications, while noting that patenting still remains limited;

D.whereas the EU’s nuclear research and safety community benefits from long-standing expertise and established cooperation in several Member States; whereas the Euratom programme should ensure that such expertise can be shared and scaled across the EU, while supporting internal geographical diversity by being effectively accessible and providing equal opportunities for all Member States, including those starting nuclear programmes, through targeted capacity-building measures such as training, knowledge transfer, expert mobility and exchanges and facilitated access to collaborative networks, while addressing disproportionate administrative barriers faced by less experienced and smaller research and innovation ecosystems; whereas such accessibility should also recognise and build on the existing expertise and capacities available across the EU;

E.whereas the development and safe deployment of current and future nuclear technologies require a sustained investment in nuclear skills, training, knowledge transfer and expert mobility across the EU;

1.Takes note of the Commission proposal for a programme envelope of EUR 9 784 billion for the period 2028-2032 in order to provide appropriate resources for achieving nuclear fission safety objectives, support research and innovation in the fusion sector and continue efforts on the ITER project;

2.Considers that sufficient resources, including human, technical and IT resources, must be available from the outset and throughout the entire programming period of the 2028-2034 MFF to ensure an effective implementation of the Euratom programme and the ITER project, including tailored capacity-building support for Member States starting or expanding their nuclear programmes to ensure high safety standards across the EU; stresses, in this regard, the need to enhance technical, engineering and professional training, in part by involving universities, research centres, businesses and higher technical institutes, with a view to addressing the lack of relevant expertise in the nuclear industry; stresses, furthermore, the importance of making Europe more attractive to researchers, engineers and highly qualified young talent, thereby tackling the drain of strategic skills to non-EU countries;

3.Regrets that Article 5 of the proposal does not include any indicative breakdown of the budget across objectives; believes that indicative amounts should be provided in order to give beneficiaries a clear indication of the budget envisaged for the different pillars of the programme; notes that this would give the Commission great latitude to shift and decide on spending priorities during implementation; stresses that simplification and flexibility must not come at the expense of transparency and oversight by the budgetary authority; recommends, therefore, that the overall envelope be broken down to reflect the different strands of the programme;

4.Deplores the lack of a sufficiently detailed indicative budgetary nomenclature proposed in the Legislative Financial and Digital Statement (LFDS); considers that this will hamper the budgetary authority’s ability to accurately steer policy priorities in the annual budgetary procedure; expresses concerns that the overly aggregated budgetary architecture would dramatically increase the Commission’s discretion in transferring and reallocating resources without a decision from the budgetary authority, and would severely limit parliamentary oversight; recommends, therefore, a more detailed nomenclature that properly reflects the objectives and structure of the Euratom programme and enhances transparency, accountability and parliamentary control; recalls that the budgetary nomenclature must be established in line with Article 47(2) of the Financial Regulation, which provides that each title must correspond to a policy area and each chapter, as a rule, to a programme or an activity, in line with the principles of specification, sound financial management and transparency; recommends that the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy amends the proposal to include an annex defining the nomenclature of the programme; insists that the budgetary nomenclature forms an integral part of Parliament’s negotiating position and must be discussed in interinstitutional negotiations; considers, in this regard, that the revised LFDS must be part of the final political agreement;

5.Insists that sufficiently detailed and sound legislation, with an appropriate level of governance, is a condition for proper budgetary decision-making and adequate parliamentary oversight during budget implementation; recommends introducing provisions to strengthen control over how the budget is mobilised and spent; considers that the so-called ‘steering mechanism’ can in no way be a substitute for Parliament’s legislative and budgetary powers, and cannot be conceived without a sound governance architecture that ensures the exercise of such powers;

6.Believes that all substantive policy choices, such as programme objectives, spending priorities, financial allocations, eligibility conditions and selection criteria, must be determined in the basic act, with full respect for Parliament’s prerogatives as a co-legislator and one arm of the EU’s budgetary authority;

7.Recalls that the proposal includes the possibility of using a budgetary guarantee; stresses that the budgetary implications of borrowing and lending operations under the Euratom programme and the ITER project must be clearly identified, transparently presented and carefully monitored throughout the MFF period; considers that the use of these instruments should be limited to operations that demonstrate clear added value for Europe, have appropriately assessed risk profiles and show proven capacity to mobilise additional investment, thereby avoiding future inadequately quantified burdens on the EU budget; calls, furthermore, on the Commission and F4E to ensure accurate and regular reporting on costs, delays and the completion of the ITER project’s major milestones, with a view to increasing transparency and preventing additional budget overruns; insists that all decisions related to such operations must fully respect the powers of the co-legislators and the prerogatives of the budgetary authority;

8.Highlights the importance of safeguarding a balanced distribution of opportunities across the EU, while preserving excellence and facilitating the participation of SMEs; calls for the programme to contribute to reducing administrative burden for all applicants and beneficiaries, in particular smaller entities such as SMEs, while maintaining robust control and audit reporting, in order to safeguard the EU’s financial interests; stresses the need for clear, measurable and performance-based indicators to assess project implementation and success, in order to guarantee the efficient, effective, transparent and purpose-oriented use of EU funds;

9.Takes note of the proposed complementarity between the Euratom programme and Horizon Europe; stresses that enhanced complementarity between instruments must not come at the expense of traceability of expenditure or the prerogatives of the budgetary authority; underlines that the contribution from other programmes must be explicitly identifiable at all stages of the budgetary cycle; underlines that the contribution of the Euratom programme to operations financed jointly with other instruments must be explicitly identifiable at all stages of the budgetary cycle; stresses, in this regard, that any such contribution must be duly reflected in the programme performance statement for the Euratom programme; insists that the budgetary authority retain full control over how resources are combined across instruments and over the effective contribution of each programme to EU priorities, specifically through detailed budgetary nomenclature; stresses that enhanced complementarity between programmes must not lead to disproportionate complexity for beneficiaries; calls for EU funding to be clearer, more accessible and more coherent in order to facilitate uptake and maximise the impact of investments;

10.Stresses that the use of external assigned revenue under the Euratom programme and the ITER project must be clearly circumscribed, fully transparent and subject to effective parliamentary scrutiny; recalls the importance of ensuring the traceability of external assigned revenue; takes note, in that regard, of the provisions relating to financial contributions from any participating non-EU countries and other donors and to the allocation of those contributions across programme activities; stresses that cooperation with non-EU countries should align with the EU’s strategic interests, ensure the security of sensitive technologies and safeguard intellectual property; underlines that, should the lead committee consider amending provisions relating to external assigned revenue, this should be done in coordination with the Committee on Budgets and the other committees in order to ensure a consistent approach;

11.Recalls the proposal for a regulation on establishing a budget expenditure tracking and performance framework and other horizontal rules for the Union programmes and activities (the performance regulation), which establishes a single streamlined list for performance indicators and monitoring and evaluation provisions, some of which are relevant for the Euratom programme; underlines that any change to the architecture, objectives and eligible actions under the programme will need to be appropriately reflected in Annex I of the performance regulation, as part of the process of amending and negotiating that regulation; points out that, while sectoral legislation can supplement the performance regulation, for instance as regards programme evaluations, it should remain consistent with the provisions of that regulation;

12.Recalls that under Article 6(2) of the Financial Regulation, the establishment and implementation of the budget must comply with a general regime of conditionality in case of breaches of the rule of law; underlines, furthermore, that Article 6(3) of the same regulation requires the Member States and the Commission, in the implementation of the budget, to ensure compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and respect the values on which the EU is founded, as enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union;

13.Highlights that Euratom’s actions for the development of fusion energy will be guided by the forthcoming EU fusion strategy and supported through a public-private partnership aimed at accelerating its rapid and economically viable commercialisation; considers that this partnership should prioritise European ownership, ensure fair access for enterprises in Member States, safeguard any intellectual property generated as a result of EU-funded initiatives and foster the localisation of strategic expertise and productive capacities in Europe; calls for the full involvement of Parliament in setting the strategy and its financing from the EU budget.

As part of its budgetary assessment, the Committee on Budgets also submits the following amendments to the draft proposal:

Amendment 1

Proposal for a regulation

Recital 44 a (new)

Amendment 2

Proposal for a regulation

Recital 44 b (new)

Amendment 3

Proposal for a regulation

Article 5 – paragraph 1

The rapporteur for budgetary assessment declares under his exclusive responsibility that he did not include in his budgetary assessment input from interest representatives falling within the scope of the Interinstitutional Agreement on a mandatory transparency register, or from representatives of public authorities of third countries, including their diplomatic missions and embassies, to be listed in this Annex pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure.