In a letter dated at the beginning of April, the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, the President of Thales Alenia Space and the President of Eurospace, Jean-Loïc Galle, called for more than €20 billion to be earmarked for European space policy as part of the post-2020 multi-annual financial framework. This framework is due to be presented on Wednesday 2 May.
In this letter referring to the EU’s October 2016 Space strategy (see EUROPE 11655), Mr Galle highlights the trans-sectoral importance of space infrastructure introduced by the European Union, such as Egnos, Galileo and Copernicus. He particularly emphasises the key role of space policy in helping to ensure the independence and sovereignty of the European continent and, in this regard, alludes to the strategies introduced by the US, Russia and China to develop their respective independence.
In the letter, of which EUROPE has obtained a copy, it is stated that, “preparing the ‘Space’ section of the EU’s next multi-annual financial framework will therefore constitute a major opportunity for harvesting investment benefits from ongoing programmes, responding to the new challenges that have appeared in recent years and reducing the increasing gap between our international competitors”. This is a thinly veiled reference to the spectacular progress achieved in the US in the reusable launcher domain by the private sector.
More ambitious demands than in September 2017
Annexed to the letter are the recommendations from the space sector for the next budget cycle: a total budget of €22.2 billion over seven years, of which €9 billion will go to Galileo and Egnos, €7 billion will go to Copernicus, €1 billion will go to GovSatCom, €1 billion is earmarked for the space monitoring system, just under €2.5 billion will go to the next European research and development programme (FP9) and around €700 million will go to launch infrastructure support. In a letter sent in September 2017 to the Vice President of the European Commission, Maroš Šefčovič, Eurospace formulated a request for providing Space policy with a budget of €20 billion. The organisation wanted €7 billion from the budget for Egnos and Galileo, as opposed to the current €9 billion. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)