The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, maintains in his proposals on the next Multiannual Financial Framework for the European Summit this weekend the budget cuts proposed by the European Commission for the EU Space Programme, in order to maintain its envelope at 13.2 billion euros in constant prices.
Thus, the financial envelope for the implementation of the space programme for the period 2021-2027 will be “a maximum” of 13,202 million euros, of which 8,000 million euros will be devoted to the Galileo European navigation programme and 4,810 million euros to the Copernicus earth observation programme. In 2018, the European Commission proposed a package of 14.2 billion euros (2018 prices).
“This is unimaginable”, French MEP Christophe Grudler (Renew Europe), shadow rapporteur on the EU space programme, told EUROPE, saying the proposals “take absolutely no account” of the role of the space sector during the health crisis and the growing need to guarantee European sovereignty.
“We place ourselves under the dependence of others”, the Frenchman deplored, fearing clear cuts in GovSatCom, the European satellite telecommunications programme for government use. Mr Grudler said it was difficult to continue negotiations on the EU space programme, on which Massimiliano Salini (EPP, Italy) is the European Parliament rapporteur. “We cannot work on a text for which there will not be enough budget”, he insisted. And to conclude: “we’re going to go up in flames”.
Similar concerns from the space industry. Olivier Lemaitre, Secretary General of Eurospace, speaking on behalf of the organisation, recalled that the European Commission’s proposals represent a budget cut of 7% compared to what it had proposed in 2018.
He added that, from the outset, and despite the increased ambition compared to the current Multiannual Financial Framework, the European Commission’s proposals did not allow for the full deployment and operation of Copernicus, the 500 million euros proposed for the initiatives on space situational awareness and monitoring of objects in orbit and GovSatCom being “extremely modest”, in his view. “Even with the European Commission’s initial proposal, Europe’s total institutional investment in space remains six to seven times lower than in the United States”.
Both Mr Grudler and Mr Lemaitre hope that the project for a satellite constellation in the field of connectivity, wanted by Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton, can succeed. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)