From my knowledge, the ERC funds fundamental science. In my personal area (theoretical physics), people tend to move from Fortran to C++ nowadays. As an effect, mostly readability decreases (without linear algebra libraries) or the compiler doesn't help anymore with compile-time bound checks (so people use run-time bound checks with assertions instead). Not even to mention the years of wasted time for people finding bugs in their parallel codes. And all codes with the "HPC" badge are parallel nowadays. I think supporting a modern ecosystem is a good decision if people move away from C++ towards Rust or Julia (another ERC... http://opendreamkit.org/).

(Note: Please don't feed the trolls. Nobody has time for language rants)