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Germany Fights Exclusion of UK and Israel from EU Research Projects
(AFP-Barron's) Germany and other EU members are opposing a move by the European Commission to block Britain, Israel and Switzerland from quantum and space projects on security grounds, diplomats said Tuesday. The decision to block non-EU countries is backed by France. "In the field of quantum technology in particular, these countries have traditionally been important partners and should continue in this role in the future," German Research Minister Thomas Rachel said. The commission stressed in a meeting last week that it was especially concerned about valuable intellectual property ending up in the hands of the U.S. or China. But academics point out that Britain and Israel are longtime partners in these research areas. Cutting them off now would cause Europe to lose even more ground to the U.S. and China, they argue.