The European Commission's Deputy Director-General for Internal Market, Industry and Enterprise (DG GROW), Pierre Delsaux, announced on Thursday 26 September the European Commission's priorities for the defence and security aspects of the European Space Policy, which will require appropriate budgets.
Thus, in front of the MEPs of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Security and Defence, Mr Delsaux explained that the Commission wanted to develop a border observation system. "If we get the budget, we would like a Copernicus system for border surveillance, especially maritime surveillance", he said, adding that the challenge was to find a way to disseminate information in a secure way, because the Copernicus system is open.
The Commission also wishes to develop GOVSATCOM, the government communication for satellite security services. The objective is to compensate for a lack of possible communication between ground services in the case of certain events, as was the case during the attacks in Brussels. "A number of Member States already have this capacity. The idea is to pool and share this capacity, perhaps purchase available capacity in private sectors and distribute it to all Member States", Mr Delsaux detailed.
The Commission representative highlighted the SST programme "Space surveillance and tracking" in order to find out where debris and satellites are located in space. "Only a few Member States have the knowledge to observe (France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy and Spain), but at the moment we depend on the USA" and on their goodwill "to know what is going on", revealed Mr Delsaux. "What we want to do is to use the resources that exist in the Member States, to have funding to increase these resources and to put the information together and communicate it to everyone", he said. But some Member States are reluctant about the project because, for them, whoever is observing debris in the sky, is also observing their military satellites and their movements. "There is a tension between knowing where the debris are and the military interests to be protected. We think this is an issue that needs to be worked on and we will continue to do this", he added.
Another important subject: satellite traffic management, as orbits are limited and already extremely congested. While ongoing work on access to space is progressing at the United Nations, the United States has decided to start working on regulation on its side. For Mr Delsaux, the question is: ‘should one allow Washington to decide or establish a dialogue to put in place common rules, all the while continuing discussions at the UN?’ Here too, the issue of military satellites poses a problem. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)