The national delegations of the EU Member States made progress in the Space Working Group on Tuesday 20 October on the Regulation establishing the EU Space Programme, in particular on the thorny issue of Article 25 on the protection of the EU’s essential interests. The German EU Council Presidency hopes to reach an agreement at the meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives on Wednesday 28 October to find a mandate to resume negotiations with the European Parliament.
That is what it wishes to do, particularly with regard to Article 25, which adopts the EU Council’s Security Committee’s opinion of 19 October, which made two recommendations: - replace ‘competent security authorities’ with ‘competent authorities’; - and that, in the case of classified contracts, the conditions of eligibility and participation for country entities laid down by the European Commission must be fulfilled in accordance with the competences of the national authorities. The Presidency wants to make progress on this point and to seal an agreement quickly at Coreper level. “This is a step in the right direction, and we hope that the agreement reached in the Coreper working group will not be called into question”, says one source.
On the other hand, Articles 7 and 8 still seem to pose a bit of a challenge. The German Presidency reportedly reverted to a proposal similar to that of the European Commission by excluding the participation of non-Member States in the SST consortium for space situational awareness and the monitoring of objects in orbit.
On the other hand, there are apparently still questions about the modalities of participation. Some Member States reportedly prefer participation along the lines of ‘Galileo’, through international agreements, while others prefer agreements negotiated with the Commission, as is the case with Copernicus. Switzerland’s participation would remain based on existing agreements.
‘Space’ Council. Delegations reportedly made progress towards a consolidated text in view of the ‘Space’ Council on 20 November. The text has been considerably reduced and cleaned up.
This is a significant step forward, whereas not long ago the co-legislators were concerned about the slow pace of negotiations on the two dossiers (see EUROPE 12578/7). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)