On Tuesday morning 29 May during the second day of the Competitiveness Council, the director-general of the European Space Agency (ESA), Johann-Dietrich Wörner, presented his vision of the future of European Space policy and, particularly, the setting up of an “organisation” backed up by a “Grand Council” for streamlining its operations.
Addressing ministers in charge of space policy, Mr Wörner, explained that he envisaged an organisation that would be able to guarantee greater coherency of European Space activities. This organisation would be based on three different “sections”: an intergovernmental section with a geo-return principle (applied within the European Space Agency) and focusing on research and industrial development; a section devoted especially to programmes financed by the European Union and a third section used to disseminate the results (“downstream services”) to the public, industry and different policy areas.
According to Mr Wörner, all three sections should use the same infrastructure, competences and capabilities and streamline European policies in the Space domain. In this connection, Mr Wörner is planning on setting up a “Grand Council” that brings together all public actors for implementing the decisions in the three different sections.
The director-general would like to develop a United Space of Europe and considers that the European space sector is facing the triple threat of fragmentation, complexity and 'Brexit' (see EUROPE 12027), as well as the fact that it has to confront even more aggressive competition from countries such as the US.
Mr Wörner argues that another area in which they need to develop involves the synchronisation of budget cycles between the ESA and European Union.
In the morning, the Commissioner for Industry and Internal Market, Elżbieta Bieńkowska, presented the next regulation for the space domain, which was due to be presented on 6 June and which follows 4 major principles: the continuity of current programmes (EGNOS, Galileo, Copernicus); - new priorities (security and GovSatCom); data uptake; and the improvement of governance with the ESA. The Commission has presented a 2021-2027 budget for space policy that includes an increase of €4 billion (EUROPE 12014).
It should be recalled that in October 2016, the ESA and Commission signed a joint cooperation statement (see EUROPE 11655). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)