After months of heated negotiations, the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA) reached a provisional agreement on the Financial Framework Partnership Agreement (FFPA) at the end of last week, according to information obtained on Wednesday 21 April.
The negotiations have been concluded, but the agreement still needs to be approved by the Member States, including the ESA Council, during the month of June. On the Commission side, approval is expected in May under a comitology procedure.
As a reminder, the FFPA defines, among other things, the distribution of budgets related to the space programme, notably between the ESA and the future EU Space Programme Agency (EUSPA), but also the budget that the ESA will delegate to the EUSPA. In general, the FFPA defines the responsibilities and tasks of the different entities, but also the decision-making perimeters for each entity.
The question of the Contracting Authority has been the most difficult point to negotiate (see EUROPE 12606/6), especially in the framework of the EUSPA, which is not looked on favourably by the ESA, which wants to remain the executive agency for European space programmes (see EUROPE 12693/10).
Thus, for Galileo and EGNOS, the contracting authority is expected to be the European Commission, the programme manager should be the ESA, and the operating authority will be the EUSPA. For Copernicus, GOVSATCOM and the SSA programme, the contracting authority will reportedly be the ESA, the European Commission’s programme manager, and the operating authority should be the EUSPA. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)