The Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), Josef Aschbacher, stressed at a press briefing on Tuesday 15 November the importance of EU co-legislators reaching an agreement on Thursday on the future constellation for secure connectivity ahead of budget negotiations at the ESA Ministerial Council next week.
“The deadline or the conclusion of the regulation this week is a very important milestone in this because that provides stability, at least from a regulatory framework in Brussels for our ministers in Paris to then subscribe to the programme”, Mr Aschbacher told EUROPE.
The Director General recalled that his services had worked “very, very hard” to prepare a proposal for the ministerial meeting to be held on 22 November. According to a document seen by EUROPE in October and since publicly confirmed, ESA hopes to obtain a budget from its member states of up to €750 million for connectivity (see EUROPE 13038/11).
This budget, if adopted for this amount, will ultimately help establish ESA’s role in the future constellation architecture, according to Mr Aschbacher. Asked by EUROPE about the debate between the EU co-legislators on whether ESA ‘shall’ or ‘may’ be involved in the development of the constellation (see EUROPE 13062/20), the Director General was “pragmatic”. “If we managed to get a significant subscription to secure connectivity with 750 million, I think the ‘may’ is very easy to convert into a ‘shall because then why wouldn’t that subscription be properly used and integrated into the construction of secure connectivity?”, he asked.
EU co-legislators will meet again on Thursday 17 November for what should be a conclusive meeting if they can reach a provisional political agreement on budgetary issues. The following week, the ESA triennial meeting will be held in Paris, which sets the budgetary guidelines for the next three years. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)