During a discussion with MEPs from the European Parliament’s ITRE Committee in Vienna on Monday 24 September, Jean-Jacques Tortora, the Director of the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), said that the question of British participation in the different space programmes after Brexit is both conceivable and desirable. In his view, participation in the security section of the Galileo geolocalisation programme is the only area that could cause problems.
In response to Evžen Tošenovský’s (ECR, Czech Republic) concerns about losing British know-how once the United Kingdom effectively leaves the European Union, Mr Tortora, a Space specialist in his own right, emphasised that, “We must guarantee the effective continuity of United Kingdom's participation in several EU space programmes”. Therefore, this former Secretary General of the European Aerospace Industry (Eurospace), considers that the United Kingdom can continue to take part in Copernicus (terrestrial observation) notwithstanding certain restrictions, as well as in the GovSatCom programme (governmental telecommunications), the SST programme (Space debris monitoring) and the civilian area of the Galileo programme.
On the other hand, he believes that the really “critical” subject involves access to the PRS, the encrypted service provided by the Galileo system for all sensitive and governmental applications. The expert concluded “When you have good friends, you can, despite everything, invite them home but the question is whether you are going to leave them with the keys to the house or not".
A political issue rather than an economic one?
This former senior industrial strategy manager at the French National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) pointed out that the United Kingdom had initially been opposed to the Galileo programme and had negotiated a high price for its participation, particularly by ensuring a very high level of participation for its own industry in the programme. Despite everything, Mr Tortora considers that the question of the impact from Brexit on the European Space sector will not be framed so much in economic terms - given that the British Space industry is rather limited - as in political terms.
Luisa Santos is responsible for Brexit at BusinessEurope, the association representing European employers. She considers that regulatory differences between the United Kingdom and Union could undermine the effective participation of the United Kingdom in EU calls for tender and proposals. She explained that the major difficulty for SMEs is drawing up a comprehensive inventory of the supply chains that will be affected by Brexit.
Reinhilde Veugelers, a researcher at the economic reflection group, Breugel, highlighted the risk of a systematic impact on the entire value chain within the European Space sector if the United Kingdom leaves without obtaining a deal with the EU. In his view, the two other major unknowns are the United Kingdom's future industrial and trade policies.
British participation in the Galileo programme is one of the most difficult dossiers in the Brexit negotiations and the EU is refusing to grant access to encrypted information from this European programme (see EUROPE 12032, 12027). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)