The European Commission is preparing for intense and difficult negotiations with the European Space Agency (ESA) on the Financial Framework Partnership Agreement (FFPA), in particular on the role of the future EU Space Programme Agency (EUSPA), according to a memo from the cabinet of Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton obtained by EUROPE on Wednesday 5 February.
The departments of the European Commission's new DG DEFIS (Defence Industry and Space) want to move as quickly as possible. They reject a “sequential” approach in favour of “parallel block” negotiations. The aim is to reach an agreement with ESA by September 2020, and then allow time for the formal adoption procedure by the European Commission, EUSPA and ESA.
However, the Commission departments expect difficult negotiations: “the ESA will play the delay card, seeking to prolong the existing patchwork of contribution agreements and corresponding remunerations (by pushing for Plan B)”. However, the Commission does not see this as an option. “We cannot afford to be dragged into ESA's Plan B, as the streamlined governance must be put in place at the beginning of the Multiannual Financial Framework”, the memo states.
Brexit and the issue of European security
As the primary objective is the “protection of the Union's interests”, both financially and in terms of security. Under the new regulation establishing the space programme, certain tasks will be delegated to ESA. However, the issue is sensitive in the context of Brexit, since the United Kingdom, which remains a member of ESA, has announced its intention to develop a Global Navigation Satellite System, a potential competitor for Galileo.
The Commission is concerned that ESA may not take appropriate measures to prevent expertise and staff carrying out sensitive work related to the security of EU programmes, such as Galileo's PRS service, the encrypted service for sensitive applications, from being exploited by competing programmes developed by non-EU Member States.
Governance of Galileo
The Commission also wants to clarify governance on the basis of the new Regulation (see EUROPE 12203/11), in particular following the incident in the summer of 2019 which severely disrupted the European navigation programme for almost a week (see EUROPE 12296/19).
Thus, the Commission wants “linear governance” with a single chain of command: EUSPA is the operations manager and therefore fully responsible for service delivery, while ESA, as the design authority for future generations, works under the responsibility of EUSPA. However, here too, the Commission expects “ESA will try to keep as much as possible tasks under the current triangular model”.
Order aggregation
The question of the distribution of roles for the institutional aggregation of orders for European launchers (28 launches by 2030 between Galileo and Copernicus) is also likely to be difficult.
In the Commission's view, EUSPA, as the operations manager, should act as the “technical interface” with Arianespace, and as such would sign the specific launch contracts with Ariane, with ESA providing technical support to EUSPA as required.
Here too, the cabinet is apprehensive about ESA's position: “as ESA wants to be in charge of EU launching services on the Commission’s behalf, also for aggregating the EU demand, in order to benefit from financial overheads, ESA will challenge the EU capacity to contract directly with Ariane”.
As a reminder, the EU contribution to the ESA budget is currently on average 23% of the total ESA budget and 20% of the ESA staff budget. At the European Space Conference, the ESA made no secret of its concerns about the budget cuts in space policy currently being considered by the EU Member States (see EUROPE 12409/8). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)