The European Space Agency (ESA) intends to recruit 200 new staff and review its internal organisation to carry out the programmes agreed at the Paris Ministerial Council in November, following the 314th ESA Council meeting on Thursday 15 December.
At the press conference, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said that the new recruits are needed to meet the new objectives and budget increase agreed at the Paris ministerial meeting (see EUROPE 13069/18). The vacancy announcements will be published as soon as possible at the beginning of next year, he said. In this respect, he provided assurances that his institution was trying to reduce recruitment time significantly to achieve a time saving of 40%.
Following the ESA Council, two new directors were appointed: Carole Mundell has been appointed Director of Science, succeeding the current Director, Günther Hasinger. Dietmar Pilz has been appointed Director of Technology, Engineering and Quality, succeeding the current Director, Torben Henriksen. According to Mr Aschbacher, they should take up their posts in the spring.
Regarding subscriptions, the final adjustments should be finalised in February, he said. The idea is to move as quickly as possible to contractual implementation. In this respect, Mr Aschbacher said that ESA is seeking to halve the time taken to award public procurement contracts (currently the average is just under 9 months). In general, the Director General again stressed the importance of developing the commercialisation of space activities.
Responding to EUROPE on the question of how to take account of rising inflation in investment programmes (see EUROPE 13053/2), the Director General provided assurances that this issue was taken into account based on European Central Bank (ECB) forecasts. For optional programmes, the inflation rate is adjusted retroactively each year, he said.
On the other hand, he added that the inflation adjustment system does not exist under the Financial Framework Partnership Agreement (FFPA) with the European Commission. This issue is in the hands of the European Commission for EU funding, he stressed.
To access the latest version of the national subscriptions: https://aeur.eu/f/4pk (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)