MEPs adopted the regulation establishing the European Space Programme on Thursday 13 December at the Strasbourg plenary session by a strong majority (483 votes to 68 against, with 19 abstentions).
As a reminder, the MEPs in the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) have increased the programme's budget from €16 billion to €16.9 billion. They have created a €1.2 billion budget line for the Space Situational Awareness programme (SSA), whose mission is to monitor "space weather", asteroid trajectories and space debris, as well as GovSatcom, the encrypted communication programme.
They also set in stone the principle of institutional aggregation controls to support EU launch services and specified the need to develop alternative technologies (renewable launchers). Finally, they have strengthened the management role of the European Commission's programme (see EUROPE 12142).
Remaining in the Council, the programme is falling behind schedule and getting bogged down due to German blocking tactics on space governance. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)