Brussels, 03/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - The adoption and presentation, on Thursday 28 October, of the communication by the European Commission entitled “An Industrial Policy for the Globalisation Era: Putting Competitiveness and Sustainability at Centre Stage” (EUROPE 10245) helped to hide the lack of ambition on the part of the Commission as a college regarding sectorial strategies which need to be defined at European level. The first victim of this lack of political courage is the space strategy of the European Union, which was to have come into being on the basis of Article 189 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. The draft communication, which was drafted by the services of Vice-President Antonio Tajani, seems simply to have gone by the board. Additionally, the content of this text should have been integrated into the communication industrial policy. In actual fact, the text, which was not much to the liking of certain capitals - mainly those of countries such as the United Kingdom, which have little involvement in European space policy or, quite the reverse, those of countries such as Germany, which disapprove of the idea that the European Space Agency (ESA) could become subordinate to space policy decided upon at Union level - was shelved during the process of the inter-services consultation which precedes the adoption of the text.
The draft communication stressed that the EU now has an explicit mandate under the Lisbon Treaty to create a space policy, develop space programmes and coordinate the actions of the member states in this field, both internally and externally. “The treaty thus gives a political dimension to space, which also becomes a security factor”, stressed the text, which recalled that space policy should respond to three types of requirement: societal (environment, climate change, public safety, transport, information society); economic (innovation, competitiveness, growth and employment); and strategic (the Union as a major player on the global scene). The services of the Commission proposed a priority nature: - for satellite radio navigation (Galileo/EGNOS) with the announcement of the legislature in 2011 to ensure that the Galileo constellation is completed within a reasonable length of time and to set in place new governance; - for the GMES project, which must be fully operational in 2014 to guarantee the Union autonomy of information on elements related to the environment and security; - for the reinforcement of the “security” component of GMES and the development of a protection capacity-based infrastructure; - for the creation of the space industrial policy, based on a better use of the regulatory framework, including the possibility of opening up the national markets to European competition, support for research (with a fundamental space research effort to be made under the eighth FPRD) and innovation, the financial instruments (Community budget, structural funds, EIB) and the procurement policy, which should identify, a long way upstream, the products to be funded from the Union budget; - for space exploration, with Community contributions for the development of technologies required for exploration, including launch vehicles.
As regards governance, the draft communication stressed that Article 189 should lead the Union to “incarnate the space policy face of Europe internationally”. In this context, the text proposed to move forward the relations of the EU and ESA, with the former becoming the political and operational centre of gravity, while the latter, which has strong technical and management skills and could support the development of new infrastructure, both in the framework of inter-governmental programmes and as part of programmes funded by the Union, would also remain the financial centre of gravity for research and development in the medium term. On this basis, the framework agreement of the Union with the ESA would also be worth revisiting prior to its forthcoming expiry in 2012. Lastly, the Commission is believed to have pledged to look into the possibility of putting forward a proposal for European space policy in 2011. (O.J./trans.fl)