Brussels, 07/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - Projects at European level would help reduce costs, “an idea dear to the European Parliament's heart”, said Jacek Saryusz-Wolski (EPP-ED, Poland), chairman of the foreign affairs committee, as he opened a hearing on Wednesday 2 May devoted to the contribution space can make to the ESDP. Chairman of the sub-committee on security and defence Karl von Wogau (EPP-ED, Germany) said that Europe “needs information satellites for military missions, to protect its external borders, to protect sensitive infrastructure and even to warn of tsunamis”. Currently, what little means exist are spread among several member states, resulting in needless duplication. Furthermore, the long-term funding of these capabilities is by no means certain. In a resolution adopted on 16 November 2006 the European Parliament called for the European Defence Agency (EDA), in conjunction with the European Commission, to launch “integrated research and development processes in areas that will strengthen integrated and coordinated civil-military approaches”, for example for air and satellite information systems and integrated telecommunications systems. Belgian Liberal François Roelants du Vivier, who chairs the foreign affairs committee in the Belgian Senate, also called for genuine cooperation between the European Commission, the European Defence Agency and the European Space Agency on those parts of the ESDP which refer to space, in particular the development of GMES (Global Monitoring on Environment and Security) and Galileo. Within the framework of this increased cooperation, the Torrejon satellite centre should be used in the field of observation, even though the EU is not trying to rival the United States, he said.
Paul Weissenberg, Director of Aerospace, Security, Defence and Equipment at the Commission's Enterprise and Industry Directorate-General, said it was essential to develop inter-pillar dialogue and cooperation between the Commission, the EDA and the satellite centre to respond to the need for autonomous and sustainable capabilities. He noted that the Commission was in the process of drawing up a preparatory action for GMES, to take it into an operational phase. In this context, he stressed that the budget set aside in the 7th RDFP would not be sufficient to fund GMES operational services. Referring to the draft conclusions being prepared ahead of the Space Council on 22 May, Mr Weissenberg said that, while the current text does not go as far as the Commission would have wished, it was, nonetheless, “a step forward”. He welcomed that member states (1) now recognised the need for European coordination between the Commission and the European Space Agency, (2) accepted the idea of a security dimension in space policy, and (3) agreed to coordination of cooperation activities with third countries.
Guillaume Dandrieux, member of the EU general staff, and Xavier Pasco, of the Foundation for Strategic Research (Paris), advocated the integrated use of the different satellites intended for space observation, telecommunications and positioning, lending support to the idea that the difference between civilian and military needs is blurring, as was seen with the tsunami of December 2004. The head of the EU satellite centre, Frank Asbeck, said that, at the moment, the Torrejon centre was using material exclusively from commercial and mainly American satellites. In the days of the WEU, the centre could access the French Helios 1 system, but the convention granting access to Helios 2 images has yet to be signed. In general terms, even if the centre had access to these images and later to material from the German SAR-Lupe and Italian Cosmos-Skymed systems, it could never order specific images. Hence the importance of the centre's being a partner in these systems.
According to the experts who took part in the hearing, member states spend €500 million per year over 15 years for telecommunications satellites. To replace military communications satellites, which will reach the end of their lives in 2017, similar funding will have to be found. The experts also estimated that €4 billion will be needed over the next ten years for information gathering and communication. (oj)