On Friday, a protest rally was held outside the building of the EU Commission in Cyprus in Nicosia, which became part of a pan-European campaign with protests in more than 20 cities involving students and researchers.

The protesters demand a boycott of the EU’s Horizon program against Israel.

About 30-40 activists gathered in Nicosia on a cold evening, which, as one of the speakers noted, is much colder for Gazans, adding that three children died there in 24 hours from the cold.

The protesters chanted slogans like: “EU Horizon, you can’t hide, we accuse you of genocide!”

“Horizon is an EU program worth 95 billion euros to fund research and innovation,” one activist said, reading out a prepared speech, adding that Israel has a “privileged agreement” allowing them to participate in the same way as any member state.

“Since 2014, Israel has been receiving 300 million euros per year under this program. 3 billion euros from EU funds go directly to the state that is carrying out the genocide.”

Among the projects that have received funding from Horizon, he continued, are projects by the Israeli aerospace industry, “so-called counter-terrorism programs”… surveillance projects, including the development of interrogation techniques, and military drones used for genocide.

“Since October 7, the European Commission has only briefly considered suspending Israel’s participation, proposing a partial suspension that would reduce cooperation with Israel by only 20 percent — a senseless proposal and an act of hypocrisy.”

On the contrary, “in April 2022, the European Commission completely and immediately excluded Russia from the Horizon program, demonstrating that the procedure is perfectly applicable when such gestures correspond to Western interests.”

https://russiancyprus.news/news/society/protesters-call-for-israel-expulsion-from-eu-horizon-programme/