Brussels, 23/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - With the Commission behind in preparations for the future European space programme and with work on research into security making slow progress in the forthcoming framework programme on research, the services of Commissioner Günter Verheugen have just published the report on space and security drawn up by a panel of 150 experts from space agencies, civil and military user backgrounds and the world of industry.
This report takes a long look at real needs in terms of both civil and military applications of space technology in the three areas in question: 1) communication, 2) observation, detection and cartography, 3) radio navigation and positioning. Although in the third area, the Galileo system will allow Europe quickly to make good its delays, the report stresses that there are shortcomings in terms of capacities and the interoperability of the communication and observation systems currently available to the Member States. The report points to various weaknesses (such as the fact that the observation satellite Helios II A, launched last December by France, has a day/night capacity, but not full time) and the need to improve technical performance, but in particular it stresses the problems and excessive costs brought about by the absence of interoperability between the various existing systems, which may require different terrestrial reception stations, for instance. There is, therefore, considerable work to be done to harmonise standards. Added to this is a crucial lack of very high debit communication (which is needed to transmit observation data, amongst other things) and a lack of the space monitoring capability which has such an important role to play in security. The group of experts feels that the annual financial effort given over to space and European security by the 25 must rise from just under 1 billion EUR today to 2 billion by 2012. In the immediate future, the panel calls upon the Commission to set up a platform to follow the reflection and proposal work relating to the short, medium and long-term needs of space and security. (The report is available at http: //europa.eu.int/comm/space/off_docs_en.html)
Space and security research are to feature in the same thematic priority of the 7th framework programme for research and development to be adopted by the Commission on 6 April. According to undisclosed sources, this priority, which will cover both space research in its own right, the research activities of the GMES system and the research programme for security, will have an annual envelope in the order of 500 million EUR, or 3.5 billion EUR over the 7 years of the forthcoming framework programme (2007-2013-. The possible inclusion of research into Galileo in this thematic priority rather than in the transport priority was hotly debated between the two directorates general in question. The European Security Research Advisory Board (ESRAB), whose composition is to be announced in the next few days, will be put to work very quickly to prepare opinions on various aspects of the specific programme and participation rules for research into security (especially confidentiality rules) which the Commission will finalise for September.