Brussels, 07/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - EU Industry Commissioner Gunter Verheugen, the Director of the European Space Agency Jean-Jacques Dordain, and the Director of Russia's federal space agency Roskosmos, Anatoli Perminov, will be signing a space cooperation agreement in Brussels on 10 March. The agreement will cover new joint projects in various areas, like surveillance and telecoms satellites, developing scientific programmes, building a launch pad at the space centre at Kourou (CSG), French Guyana, for Russian Soyuz 2 rockets, and Russia's involvement in EU satellite navigation system Galileo (but the finishing touches of this agreement have yet to be worked out). The space cooperation agreement between the EU and Russia is part of the action plan to create a common economic area between the EU and Russia, the first of four common areas to be set up and for which action plans were adopted in may 2005 (see EUROPE 8944).