On Tuesday 27 April, the European Parliament adopted without a second reading vote, the December 2020 interinstitutional agreement on the proposal for a regulation on the European Union space programme.
The text, which had been validated the day before by the European Parliament Industry Committee (69 votes in favour, 1 against, 5 abstentions), brings together the flagship European space programmes under a single umbrella regulation, notably Galileo, EGNOS and Copernicus, and provides the EU’s space policy with a budget of 14.8 billion in current prices.
The space programme revises the governance issue by giving a more prominent place to the future EU Space Programme Agency (EUSPA), which has more extensive prerogatives than the current European GNSS Agency (GSA).
During the plenary debate, European Parliament rapporteur Massimiliano Salini (EPP, Italy) spoke of difficult negotiations, which had in fact stalled on governance, but also on the participation of third countries (see EUROPE 12624/21). Most MEPs welcomed the content of the agreement, stressing the importance of investing heavily in the space industry, the role of space data in the fight against climate change and the need to strengthen data exploitation.
Christophe Grudler (Renew Europe, France) insisted on the EU’s strategic autonomy. He called for the EU to develop a European manned spaceflight programme to the Moon and Mars and a European space defence strategy. In this respect, several fears were expressed, notably by Clare Daly (The Left, Ireland) about the militarisation of space.
European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton recalled the importance of joining forces with the European Space Agency, “the Commission’s first choice for a space partner”. In this context, he welcomed the recent agreement on the Financial Framework Partnership Agreement (FFPA) (see EUROPE 12706/5). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)