Brussels, 09/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - The President of the Parliamentary Space Group of the Belgian Federal Parliament, François Roelants du Vivier, raised the little-known parliamentary dimension of the European space policy.
The Belgian senator and former MEP pointed out that the idea of parliamentary cooperation on space had been born in France in 1996 and that three years later, French, Germany, Italian and British MPs concluded an agreement at the first European inter-parliamentary conference on space held in Paris. A charter providing for the creation of a European inter-parliamentary space conference was adopted at the same time. Belgium and Spain joined in 2001. “The aim is to meet at least once a year under the chairmanship of one of the members of the conference”, explained François Roelants du Vivier, stressing the importance of this structure and of meetings to exchange information on national and European initiatives. “Our ambition is to extend the conference to all members of the ESA (European Space Agency: Ed) and of the European Union”, said the Belgian senator, stressing the “very clear positions” adopted by the Conference on cooperation between the ESA and the European Union, keeping things favourable, the substantial increase in financial resources for space, protection of the European space industry and the role of SMEs within it, the importance of training and youth motivation, etc.
“The conference has always stressed the necessary independence of Europe in terms of space applications. Be it autonomous space access, telecommunications, meteorology or anything else, the conclusion has always been that Europe must be able to do it. Galileo must be the confirmation of this”, said Roelants du Vivier, adding: “the disaster in Asia was a brutal reminder of the need to develop an efficient earth observation system to help predict this kind of disaster and contain the impact. The inter-parliamentary space conference has always stressed the importance of GMES (Global Monitoring for the Environment and Security: Ed), a project which is often eclipsed by Galileo”. Roelants du Vivier, who is also the president of the senate's committee on foreign affairs and defence, also highlighted the role of space in defence. Pointing out that space needs in support of the European security and defence policy correspond to annual investment of two to three billion euros if Europe is to have the satellite capacity it needs to keep to its global strategic commitments, he regretted the absence of a “European reflex” in this field and said that it was up to the “national parliaments to convince the governments to develop this reflex”.
The European inter-parliamentary space conference is currently chaired by the French MP Christian Cabal (UMP). Its plenary meeting will take place in June, at the same time as the “Le Bourget salon”.