Is EU ‘Horizon’ science funding going towards Pegasus spyware?

In mid-December 2021, 60 MEPs sent a cross-party joint letter to the EU foreign affairs chief, Joseph Borrell, to express their concern about the Horizon Europe agreement with the state of Israel, that has an overall budget for 2021-27 of €95.5bn.

For decades, Israel has enjoyed unconditional European support in the field of research and innovation, similar to those that EU member states enjoy.

Such a longstanding agreement has contributed to the development of various fields in Israel, including information and communications technologies.

However, the associated violations of human rights and international law linked to such technologies and research; and, the extent to which European contribution has been financing such controversial technologies, have barely been seriously discussed.

In recent years, EU lawmakers have raised questions about the involvement of the EU — through its funding — in the development of the Israeli NSO software, directly or indirectly, which has been used to target activists, journalists and human rights defenders across the globe, including in Europe and against European parliamentarians, politicians and activists.

This is of particular concern since a number of Israeli military and security companies like Elbit and Israel Aerospace Industries have received funding under Horizon 2020 and other previous similar programmes in the past.

Again in early December 2021, 86 NGOs and experts have called on the European Commission to sanction the NSO Group, which was already blacklisted by the US Department of Commerce, and to prohibit the sale and use of its spyware Pegasus.