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Annual EU budgets shall comply with the multiannual financial framework laid down in a unanimously adopted Council Regulation with a consent of the European Parliament.

On the evening of Wednesday 29 June 2011, the European Commission presented its proposal for the next Multi-Financial Framework (2014 – 2015). This proposal will serve as a basis for the negotiations that are going to take place in the months to come in view of the adoption of the final Multi-Financial Framework.

Within this document, the GMES programme is dealt with in section 5.8.2 “Large scale projects”. In this section, the Commission proposes to foresee the funding of the GMES programme outside the multiannual financial framework after 2014.
This is also reflected in the summary table provided on page 6 of the Commission’s proposal, where GMES appears outside the multiannual financial framework, with a total budget of 5841 Million Euros over the entire period (which represents 834 Million Euros per year).

The entire proposal can be downloaded from the Europa website at the following address EC-EUROPA

Source GMES.Info

The European Commission on June 29 fired the opening shots in what will be a protracted battle over the European Union’s budget for 2014-20, proposing an increase of 5.04% compared to 2007-13.
Commission President José Manuel Barroso presented the proposal for the Multiannual Financing Framework (MFF) to the European Parliament’s political leadership last night, after securing agreement among the European commissioners in the afternoon.
The proposal appears to cut the size of the budget, measured as a proportion of the EU’s wealth, reducing it from 1.11% of gross national income (GNI) in 2007-13 to 1.05% in 2014-20.
But the Commission is also proposing to move some big-ticket spending items outside the MFF, to be funded separately. If those items were included in the count, it would constitute an increase of 11% on the 2007-13 spending, and the budget as a proportion of GNI would remain at 1.11%.
Barroso said: “We are proposing an ambitious and at the same time responsible budget.” He said it was both realistic and innovative. People should “look beyond the headline figures to see how we will deliver growth and jobs”, he said.
The headline figures are that appropriations for commitments would increase to €1,025 billion from €975.77bn in 2007-13 (up 5.04%), and appropriations for payments would increase to €971.5bn from €925bn in 2007-13.
The proposal does not meet demands made by France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and the UK in December that any increase in spending should be limited to the rate of inflation. Hungary and Poland have been prominent among the central European states demanding a more generous EU budget.
The European Parliament, whose consent is needed for any budget settlement, had called for a 5% increase from the current funding period.
The Commission is proposing shifts in spending between some policy areas, with €50bn devoted to energy, transport and information-technology infrastructure.
The proportion of the budget devoted to the Common Agricultural Policy and fisheries support would be reduced from 41% to 37%, while that for cohesion policy – regional aid and other structural funds – would increase slightly, from 36% to 37%. The budget for external policies will be increased from €56bn to €70bn.
The Commission is proposing to move outside the EU budget €2.7bn of funding for ITER, a nuclear fusion reactor project, and €5.8bn for the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), an EU-European Space Agency project to use satellites to gather scientific data about the earth. The emergency aid reserve, (€2.45bn), the European globalisation fund (€3bn), the solidarity fund (€7bn), a flexibility instrument of €3.5bn and a €3.5bn reserve for crises in the agricultural sector are also placed outside the MFF.
The proposal on the MFF was accompanied by a proposal on reforms to EU staff pay, pensions and benefits. The Commission is proposing to cut the number of staff working in all EU institutions by 5% by 2018.
Pierre-Philippe Bacri, president of the federation of European civil servants (FFPE), a staff union, said: “It’s completely the wrong response.”
Klaus-Heiner Lehne, a German centre-right MEP who chairs the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee, welcomed the proposed cutbacks. “The EU requests more efficiency and savings from member states and hereby gives a good example itself,” he said.
The Commission has retreated slightly from its widely trailed support for funding part of the EU budget with an EU-wide tax on financial transactions. The proposal now talks of a “financial sector tax”.
The Commission proposes a simplification of the rebates given to some member states on the contributions that they make to the EU budget. The most contentious rebate is the UK’s, while Germany, Austria, Sweden and the Netherland are given a rebate on their contribution to the British rebate.

REACTION
A spokesman for David Cameron, the UK’s prime minister, said: “The EU budget increase that the Commission has proposed today is unrealistic. Britain and the EU’s other largest payers made it clear in December that the EU budget should be frozen, and we will stick to that. The EU has to take the same tough measures as national governments are taking across Europe to tackle public deficits. That means a restrained EU budget focused on the things that will get our economy growing.”
“Britain will also oppose new EU taxes which will introduce additional burdens for business and damage EU competitiveness. And we will continue to protect the rebate – without it, the UK’s net contribution as a percentage of national income would be the largest across the EU, twice as large as France’s and Italy’s, and almost one-and-a-half times bigger than Germany’s.”
Jerzy Buzek, the European Parliament president, said: “The Commission’s proposal on the long-term budget for the EU is an intelligent starting point for negotiations. The next MFF will be one of the most important in the EU’s history. It will set the direction for the Union at an exceptional time when the European project is under pressure from the sovereign-debt crisis and from external instability.
“A system of real own resources would be fairer, more transparent, simpler and equitable. We should also see an end to rebates, exceptions and correction mechanisms that have accumulated within the current system.”
Alain Lamassoure, chairman of the European Parliament’s budgets committee, said: “I am glad to see that the Commission’s proposals reflect the main priorities of the European Parliament: spend better where Europe is necessary to save money elsewhere. And, above all, finding new, modern and European sources of income so that the national contributions can be lowered.”
Lamassoure added that “a debate of such importance should not be held in the secrecy of ministerial meetings behind closed doors. This should become the subject of as wide a public debate as possible, including a conference with full involvement of national parliaments. In the coming days we will make an effort toward realising this.”
© 2011 European Voice

1 July 2011 marks the start of Poland’s chairmanship of the Council of the European Union. Poland is taking over the Presidency from Hungary which has presided over the EU for the past six months.

The Polish Presidency will address the future of space policy with an optional future space programme. Besides, it intends to work on developing instruments that could help prevent the loss of biodiversity, such as spatial planning and sustainable forest management. The Presidency is indeed planning to organise two high level conferences addressing these topics.

The programme of the Polish Presidency can be found at Presidency

Source GMES.Info

On 1 July 2011 started of a new innovation competition – the GMES Masters. The European Earth Monitoring Competition calls for new ideas and services making the best use of earth observation data from Europe’s flagship programme on global monitoring for environment and security.

With the aim of making the best use of possibilities that come along with global monitoring in the domains of environment and security, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and T-Systems have launched a new competition – the GMES Masters.

The GMES Masters 2011 encourages students, researchers, entrepreneurs, start-up companies and SMEs to develop market-focused applications from data gathered through the EU-led GMES initiative. Until 15 September 2011 you are invited to submit your applications and business ideas for one of the following five “challenges”:

  • Ideas Challenge
  • Best Service Challenge
  • ESA App Challenge
  • DLR Environmental Challenge
  • T-Systems Cloud Computing Challenge

The overall winner of the competition – the GMES Master – will be selected among the winners of the Ideas Challenge, ESA App Challenge, DLR Environmental Challenge, and T-Systems Cloud Computing Challenge. The GMES Master will receive a cash prize of EUR 20,000.

To learn everything about the new European Earth Monitoring Competition and to submit your applications and business ideas please go to www.gmes-masters.com

Source GMES.Info

The European Space Agency has contracted Astrium GEO-Information Services – Infoterra GmbH to work on the “Geographic Expansion for European and Canadian EO Services”, with a specific focus on fostering the uptake of geo-information services based on High Resolution Radar Data in the fast growing market China.

Thus, Astrium GEO – Infoterra GmbH is now calling for proposals for small projects, so-called ‘service trials’.

This activity is aimed at supporting the European Value-Adding Sector in expanding its commercial activities beyond Europe. The limited uptake by non-EU markets being a key challenge for these companies today, the service trials can be an ideal opportunity to study what the opportunities are and propose activities for how they can be realized within a 5 year development action plan.

The focus of the Geographic Expansion activity is to develop business opportunities outside Europe for mature services that are already available on a commercial basis today and rely (at least partially) on using EO data from European missions.

Bidders are requested to deliver a service demonstrator, a service trial’s technical report and a short service specific business.

More details and the complete ITT documents are now available for download at http://www.infoterra.de/itt_servicetrials

Recognising the value of using Earth observation satellite data to support development activities, ESA and the World Bank will work together on several projects through the ‘eoworld’ joint initiative.

ESA and the World Bank first started collaborating two years ago when ESA carried out small-scale pilot projects that demonstrated the potential of Earth observation for the Bank’s operations.

Based on the pilots’ promising outcomes, Earth observation information will now be scaled up and incorporated into 12 World Bank activities in the marine environment, water resources management, urban development, urban and disaster risk management, and agriculture and forestry.

“The breadth of applications of Earth observation services shows the value of these services as useful tools to World Bank teams in the planning, implementation, monitoring and assessment of their ongoing and future projects,” said Anthony Bigio, senior urban specialist at the World Bank and coordinator of the eoworld initiative.

“The ultimate goal of these services is to help the World Bank offer better informed advice to our client partners.”

World Bank teams defined the requirements for the geo-information that will be provided across operations in Africa, South and Latin America, South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific.

The Earth observation information products will be generated by specialist companies from across Europe and delivered to the Bank’s staff and local stakeholders by the end of 2011.

A two-day event took place in April at World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC, that brought ESA, the World Bank and Earth observation information companies together to get the projects started.

“The main aim of the eoworld initiative is to demonstrate the value of European and Canadian satellites, both ESA and national missions, and the capabilities of specialised value-adding companies that can provide information services to benefit the World Bank’s operations,” said Stephen Coulson, ESA’s Head of Industry Section.

Expanding collaboration

During the April meeting, the Bank hosted a side event that focused on the role of satellite data in reducing risks from disasters.

The session featured presentations from the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters, an initiative set up by ESA and the French space agency, CNES, to provide satellite data to rescue workers in the event of natural or man-made disasters.

The activities of the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) were also highlighted. The Bank manages the GFDDR to help developing countries reduce their vulnerability to natural hazards and adapt to climate change.

Following discussions, ESA and GFDDR identified new possibilities for collaboration, including World Bank disaster risk management teams participating in an ESA event in May 2012 that focuses on Earth observation satellites and geo-hazard risks.

Related Links:

World Bank
World Bank eoworld

Over the last 2 years, The European Space Agency (ESA) has intensified dialogue with Multi-National Development Banks (e.g. World Bank, European Investment Bank, etc) regarding the use of EO-based information within their operations.

This is being carried out under the Value-Adding Element of EOEP, which aims to support specialist EO service providers (value-adding companies and organisations) to develop sustainable business.

Although the general potential of EO is well-recognised by the Banks, there is a need to demonstrate this potential for the specific requirements of Bank projects.

The longer-term goal is to convince Banks that EO technology should be referenced as ‘best practice’ to be used in the planning, implementation, monitoring and assessment of future Bank projects and operations.

This ongoing exercise is now focussing on the specific needs of the “European Investment Bank” (EIB).

An ITT (ESRIN/AO/1-6584/11/I-AM) has been issued on EMITS with closing date on 2 Sep 2011 at 12:00 hrs.
The ITT specifies the EO products/services to be produced and delivered in support of 11 different projects within the Bank.

Source ESA

On 1 March 2011, the European Commission launched its annual call for proposals to be funded under the LIFE+ programme.

A total of €267 million is available in the form of co-funding for grant agreements. Proposals are welcome under one of the programme’s components, which are three: Nature and Biodiversity, Environment Policy and Governance, and Information and Communication. The deadline for proposals is 18 July 2011.

LIFE+ is the European financial instrument for the environment and has a total budget of €2.143 billion for the period 2007-2013.

Further information is available at:
Life+

The Europe & Space Series #3, March 2011


The Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) initiative, launched in 1998 by the European Commission (EC), ESA and national space agencies, is often over-shadowed by what is perceived to be the flagship program of European space, Galileo. As a matter of fact, GMES is just as important, and faces many similar challenges.

The launch of GMES was motivated by comparable strategic goals. First, it will increase Europe’s autonomy, by providing independent access to space data and enabling independent decision-making (GMES will deliver information in six areas: Land, Marine, Atmosphere, Emergency Response, Security and Climate Change). Second, it will strengthen the EU contribution to global knowledge on climate change, as GMES will be the European contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). Last but not least, GMES is expected to provide major societal and economic benefits to the EU citizens, in line with the Europe 2020 strategy.

However, unlike Galileo, GMES is more than a space infrastructure. It is conceived as a system of systems, combining existing and future Earth Observation (EO) satellites, airborne sensors and ground stations to provide comprehensive and unified EO data “to better manage the environment, understand and mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure civil security”1. GMES will rely on three components: Space, In-Situ and Services2. As such, GMES is a user-oriented project, aiming at responding to user communities needs.

This paper will focus exclusively on the space-related aspects of GMES. The GMES Space Component (GSC) comprises existing systems such as Spot and Cosmo-Skymed, as well as the future Sentinel series. The procurement contracts for six Sentinels have been awarded3, and the launch contract for the first one was won by Arianespace in December 2010.

As a consequence, GMES is already delivering services, unlike Galileo which relies entirely on the launch of new spacecraft. The GMES pre-operational phase4 was launched in 2008, and the operational phase is expected to start by 2014. In September 2010, a Regulation providing the legal basis for the GMES program and its funding by the EC was adopted for the period of initial operations (2011-2013).5

GMES demonstrates the EU political will to become an international space actor, as well as the difficulties to get there. At structural level, GMES is confronted with governance and funding problems customary to the European Space Policy (ESP) (1). At policy level, the security and commercial implications of GMES remain to be defined (2). However, GMES is also the expression of a strong EU leadership at international level, in particular in the global fight against climate change (3).

Governance and funding issues

GMES is confronted with structural governance and funding obstacles somewhat similar to Galileo’s. The uncertainties surrounding the future of the GMES Space Component illustrate these issues.

A complex governance architecture

The great number and diversity of stakeholders explain the complexity of the GMES governance architecture. Indeed, besides the traditional space actors in Europe (the EC, ESA, national space agencies and EUMETSAT) comes a number of EU agencies6, regions, intergovernmental agencies7 and end users8. The program is also divided in five sequential phases9 that have each a different governance structure. A GMES Bureau was set up in 2006 as a coordination platform to tackle these problems, but it lacks efficiency due to limits in its mandate, resources and institutional settings10. One has to hope that the setting up of the adequate governance scheme for such a complex project will prove to be a progressive and iterative process…

The Regulation adopted in September 2010 to set up the initial GMES operations phase (2011-2013) clarified the governance structure. Most importantly, it confirmed the division of tasks between the EC, who exerts political leadership and holds responsibility for the overall management of the program, and ESA, who will be responsible for technical knowledge and capability of the GSC, relying on EUMETSAT when necessary. The EC will be assisted by a series of management bodies11. At the implementation level, the Space Component is led by ESA, the Service Component is implemented by the EC and the In situ Component is coordinated by the European Environment Agency (EEA).

A number of governance issues remain open. The most structural one is the splitting of strategic decisions between ESA and the EC. The two institutions have different decision-making bodies, mechanisms and schedules, which is a hindrance to coordination12. All in all, it seems necessary to strengthen the continuity and the stability of the institutional set-up by defining more precisely, for instance, the role of each stakeholder13. A related and important pending issue is that of the ownership of the Sentinel spacecraft once operational. Let’s also bear in mind that the governance architecture might be modified again once the operational phase starts in 2014 and that a new agreement between the EC and ESA will be needed to specify the attribution of tasks for the operation of the GSC14. All in all, GMES has to be considered as a “test case”: the EU and ESA have to learn working together, and lessons drawn from their cooperation on GMES will certainly be helpful for the overall future evolution of the European space governance.

An incomplete funding strategy

The funding of the program is fully public -and therefore closely linked to governance. So far, €2,3 billion have been spent for the GSC15 (72% by ESA Member States and 28% by the EC) and €500 million for the Service and the In situ Components (by the EC)16. The recent Regulation added a further €107 million for GMES initial operations between 2011 and 2013, as well as €209 million from FP7 for research programs accompanying the initial operations17.

It is clear however, that additional funding will be needed before the beginning of the operational phase in 2014. The GMES Bureau estimates that an annual €819million18 will be necessary to ensure the operational sustainability of GMES.19 While the EC is expected to bear these costs, its constraining financial rules will likely make it difficult to find the money before the beginning of its next Multiannual Financing Framework (MFF) in 2014. This raises the more general problem of elaborating adequate funding solutions for ambitious space programs involving the EU. In its recent mid-term review on Galileo, the EC pointed out the inadequacy of the EU budgetary framework to conduct projects running over several decades20. This statement can be applied to GMES as well. In this perspective, the GMES Regulation urged the EC to submit a long-term financing strategy for the future MFF during the first semester of 2011.

The uncertain future of the GMES Space Component

The difficult building-up of the GSC is a concrete manifestation of the governance and funding hurdles of the program. Contrary to Galileo, the procurement of the hardware went without controversy, as the workload was split between the two main space manufacturers in Europe, EADS and Thales Alenia Space21. However, funding the GSC was a difficult endeavor, given the different procurement rules at ESA and the EC. A specific agreement had to be negotiated between both institutions, imposing some restrictions on procurements22. In addition, ESA made it clear that it will not be able to contribute to the funding of the C series of the Sentinel spacecraft, due to its policy as an R&D-oriented organization funding prototypes and not operational systems23. This could lead to an unbearable cost increase for the EU, and possibly to a gap in the continuity of data and services.

In this context, the central focus put on the GSC (that concentrates 80% of the total funding) might have been detrimental to the user-oriented nature of GMES. As a matter of fact, the lack of an adequate link between the end-users and the actors involved in the technical implementation of the program was identified as a main weakness24. In general, user-governed entities such as EUMETSAT play a key role in the transition of space programs to the operational phase25. As GMES is currently in a pre-operational phase, it could be useful not only to reinforce the role of such entities in the overall governance framework, but also to ensure that the Sentinels are designed to fulfill user requirements. While this aspect has been insufficiently considered until now, putting the end-users at the centre of the game is necessary to ensure both the scientific and commercial success of GMES, as end-users are usually willing to pay for the fulfillment of their requirements.

Commercial and security issues

The setting-up of competitive downstream markets is indeed a contentious issues within GMES, as is the use of GMES for security applications.

The lack of commercial perspectives

A general orientation of the ESP is to focus on space applications to foster the development of downstream markets in a user-driven approach, in particular by including SMEs. The contribution of space to the construction of a European knowledge-based society was acknowledged by the 5th Space Council. All subsequent EU documents on GMES highlight the priority of developing viable downstream markets for EO applications, in order to fully reap the social and economic benefits of the program.

However, the growth of such commercial markets is strongly dependant on the public sector for three main reasons: public authorities set the legal and regulatory framework, they are large clients of EO products and they conduct general policies to influence market demand26. This is reflected in the architecture of the GMES Service Component, defined in the “Munich Roadmap”27: a distinction is made between Core Services, providing standardized multi-purpose information for a broad range of European institutional actors, and Downstream Services, derived from products from the Core Service and fulfilling more specific information needs. As a European public good, the Core Services would be entirely publicly funded, while the Downstream Services would be developed for and paid by the end-users. As such, the business case for GMES end-user services is “to improve the efficiency of the downstream sector by providing access to basic processed and modeled products more cheaply than would be the case if each company had to undertake the basic processing and modeling”28. At the end of the day, GMES is primarily a public service, in which publicly-owned observation infrastructure produce a first set of data, the Core Services, destined to public users. Meanwhile the development of Downstream Services is supposed to foster commercial applications.

The major obstacle to this scheme is the absence of a coordinated private offer for commercial EO services. Despite the potential demand for EO products, the market in Europe is still fragmented and composed of small-size companies that cannot offer integrated solution to customers. Another difficulty is that end-users will mostly be public institutions. As a consequence, they might have to pay for Downstream Services although they would already contribute to the financing of Core Services29. Finally, no reliable market analysis is currently available, which makes it difficult to calculate potential future revenues from private customers.

A related issue is the definition of an adequate data policy, which should guarantee the continuity and the reliability of the data flow, facilitate commercial developments and take into account security restrictions. There is an important distinction between the data policy for the Sentinel missions and for the contributing missions. The former is based on the principles of free and open data access as adopted by ESA Member States in September 2009 and confirmed by the EC in the recent GMES Regulation. This policy is “intended to stimulate the uptake of information based on EO data for end-users”30. The data policy for existing space components is more complex, as it implies a great number of assets owned by a large variety of stakeholders. ESA and the EC launched a formal dialogue with the concerned Member States to elaborate a long-term data access scheme31.

Defining the “S” in GMES

GMES initially stood for “Global Monitoring for Environmental Security”, but in 1999, only one year after the launch of the program, it was renamed “Global Monitoring for Environment and Security”, thus broadening its scope to all security-related issues. However, similar to Galileo, the potential security applications of GMES represent a controversial issue within the EU, which has already led to delays in the program.

The definition of GMES security applications had to take into account both the rising demand from certain Member States for security services and the reticence of others in this field, while keeping in mind that GMES is defined as a civilian program under civilian management. A GMES Working Group on Security was set up in 2002, and identified five security-related policy areas where GMES could contribute: prevention and response to crisis related to natural and technological risks; humanitarian aid and international cooperation; conflict prevention and treaty monitoring; surveillance of borders; and Common Foreign Security Policy/Common Security and Defense Policy (CFSP/CSDP)32. This large array of activities is consistent with the redefinition of the concept of security after the Cold War which was enshrined in the European Security Strategy33, moving away from a narrow military and defense perspective towards a broader scope of security.

Despite this initiative to define the security aspects of GMES, the question remains open. On the one hand, the EC is sending contradictory signals, highlighting the potential contribution of GMES to CSDP in certain documents, while stating in a recent communication that “for the foreseeable future it is not foreseen to give GMES a defence dimension”34. Other EU institutions, such as the European Parliament emphasized « the importance of GMES for foreign as well as security and defence policies of the European Union ».35 On the other hand, the demand from certain Member States for security-related services is high, as testified by their request to launch a pilot service called G-MOSAIC (GMES services for Management of Operations, Situation Awareness and Intelligence for regional Crisis) in addition to the four pre-operational services36. Currently, the security dimension of GMES is still being discussed in the frame of the Structured Dialogue on Space and Security involving all relevant stakeholders and three priority areas were already identified: border surveillance, support to external action and maritime surveillance.37

All in all, GMES security aspects are a highly political question, and developments in this field are closely tied to the overall progress of the CFSP, which will greatly depend on the effective setting up of the European External Action Service (EEAS). The EEAS will indeed have the crucial task of ensuring continuity between policies, strategies, capability developments and operations in the field. In particular, its Crisis Management Planning Directorate (CMPD) will be responsible for the strategic and political planning, including both civilian and military aspects. As such, it will have the responsibility to define the “S” in GMES more precisely. The political mandate to reach this goal is clearly laid down in the recent 7th Space Council Resolution38. In this perspective, GMES is destined to become a responsive and integrated component of a broader “system-of-systems” providing space capabilities for crisis management.

An expression of European leadership

GMES will reinforce Europe’s position on the international scene. First, GMES is the most ambitious integrated EO program to date from a technological and scientific point of view. Indeed, it intends to tackle crucial weaknesses of the EO sector, namely meeting the daily needs of users, ensuring data continuity and distributing space-based data in an integrated information system39.

Second, GMES is the strongest contribution to GEOSS, which is the leading international initiative to pool worldwide EO capabilities. It is managed by the Geneva-based GEO (Group on Earth Observation), comprising 85 governments, the EC and 61 participating international organizations. GEO will address nine areas of critical importance: disasters, health, energy, climate, water, weather, ecosystems, agriculture and biodiversity. These threats are transnational by nature, which requires transnational answers. GMES will provide a powerful instrument to tackle these challenges, and therefore constitutes a major political contribution to global governance. However, the concrete links and interfaces of GMES services with GEOSS have still to be defined40.

Finally, GMES will also serve as a foreign policy tool for the EU. This is shown by the “Lisbon Declaration on GMES and Africa” of December 2007. As part of the joint EU-Africa strategy, this initiative contributes to the objectives of sustainable development, stability and humanitarian aid for Africa.

Conclusion

A series of challenges remains to be addressed to ensure the sustainability of the GMES program. They focus in particular on the completion of an adequate data policy, the establishment of a governance framework for the operational phase, the efficient integration of GMES into the CFSP, the securing of sufficient funding after 2014 and the better involvement of end-users.

These questions all reflect the overall structural constraints of the ESP, and similar to Galileo, the full operational servicing of GMES can be viewed as a test case for the future of the European space effort. The strong political support to GMES voiced by many Member States, coupled with the growing political role played by the EC within the program, seems to indicate that Europe will stand up to its ambitions. While the setting-up of such a complex program is by nature a slow and progressive endeavor, the tremendous benefits that are expected to arise from GMES certainly constitute a strong driver to move forward.

***

  • 1 Aschbacher, Josef and Maria P. Milagro Pérez. « GMES – Status review and policy developments », in Schrogl et. al. (Eds.), Yearbook on Space Policy 2008/2009: Setting New Trends, Vienna, Springer, 2010, p. 188.
    2 Aschbacher, Josef; Beer, Thomas; Ciccolella, Antonio; Pilar Milagro, M.; Paliouras, Eleni. « Observing Earth, for a Safer Planet. GMES Space Component: status and challenges » ESA Bulletin 142, May 2010.
    3 The six satellites are Sentinel 1A/B, 2A/B and 3A/B.
    4 Four Core Services were officially launched at the 2008 GMES Forum in Lille: Marine monitoring, Land monitoring, Atmosphere monitoring, and Emergency Response.
    5 Regulation (EU) No. 911/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 September 2010 on the European Earth monitoring programme (GMES) and its initial operations (2011 to 2013).
    6 Such as EDA, FRONTEX, EUSC, EMSA, JRC or EEA.
    7 Such as the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF).
    8 European Parliament, Directorate General for Internal Policies. « The EU Programme for Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) : governance and financing. », PE 429.985, December 2009. pp. 39-43.
    9 These are : the Initial Period (2001-03), Implementation Period (2004-08), Pre-operational phase I (2008-11), Pre-operational phase II (2011-13) and GMES operational phase (2014- ).
    10 European Parliament. Directorate General for Internal Policies. op. cit. pp. 36-37.
    11 These are the GMES Committee, the User Forum and the GMES Partners Board.
    12 Aschbacher, Josef and Maria P. Milagro Pérez, op. cit. p. 197.
    13 European Parliament. Directorate General for Internal Policies. op. cit. p. 52.
    14 Aschbacher et.al., op. cit.
    15 The breakdown is the following: €268 million at the 2005 ESA Council, €522 million through a subscription by ESA Member States in 2007, €626 million through the EC’s FP7 in 2008/09 and €831 million at the 2008 ESA Council.
    16 Aschbacher et.al., op. cit. p. 28.
    17 Regulation (EU) No. 911/2010, op. cit.
    18 The breakdown is the following: €70m for the in-situ component, €149m for the service component and €600m for the GSC (development, launch and operation of the Sentinel satellites).
    19 European Commission. GMES Bureau. « EU financial needs for the GMES Programme beyond 2013. » PB-02-DOC03. October 2010.
    20 European Commission. « Mid-term review of the European satellite navigation programmes. » COM 5 final, 18 January 2011.
    21 Thanks to their respective areas of expertise, EADS was awarded the contracts to build the optical Sentinel 2 A/B and TAS is manufacturing the SAR Sentinel 1 A/B and the ocean observation spacecraft Sentinel 3 A/B.
    22 Aschbacher, Josef and Maria P. Milagro Pérez, op. cit. p. 198.
    23 de Selding, Peter B. « Funding Issue Throws GMES Continuity Plan in Doubt » Space News, 9 September 2010.
    24 European Parliament. Directorate General for Internal Policies. op. cit. p. 52.
    25 EUMETSAT. « EUMETSAT contribution to discussion on governance of space activities in Europe. » EUM/SIR/REP/10/0371 v10, 12 July 2010.
    26 European Parliament. Directorate General for Internal Policies. op. cit. p. 63.
    27 German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs. « The Way to the European Earth Observation System GMES – The Munich Roadmap. » 17 April 2007.
    28 European Parliament. Directorate General for Internal Policies. op. cit. p. 63.
    29 Ibid.
    30 Regulation (EU) No. 911/2010, op. cit.
    31 Aschbacher et.al., op. cit. pp. 27.
    32 « The Security Dimension of GMES. » Position Paper of the GMES Working Group on Security, 29 September 2003.
    33 Council of the European Union. « A Secure Europe in a Better World. European Security Strategy. » Brussels, 12 December 2003.
    34 European Commission. « Communication. Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES): Challenges and Next Steps for the Space Component. » COM 589 final, 28 October 2009.
    35 European Parliament. « Resolution on Space and Security » 2008/2030(INI). 10 July 2008.
    36 European Parliament. Directorate General for Internal Policies. op. cit. p. 28.
    37 European Commission. GMES Bureau op. cit.
    38 Council of the European Union. « 7th Space Council Resolution. Global Challenges: Taking Full Benefit of European Space Systems. » Brussels, 25 November 2010, para. 19 and 20.
    39 OECD. « Space 2030. Tackling Society’s Challenges. » 2005, p.101.
    40 Council of the EU. « 7th Space Council Resolution. Global Challenges: Taking Full Benefit of European Space Systems. » 25 November 2010.

SOURCE
by Christophe VENET, Laurence NARDON
GMES, the second flagship. The Europe & Space Series #3, March 2011

On 1 March 2011, the spatial technology company “GGP Systems” announced that users of the latest release of its desktop Geographical Information System (GIS) will be amongst the first in the UK to comply with the Directive 2007/2/EC establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE). This directive is part of a suite of European directives with the aim of standardising and ensuring access to public data related to the environment across Europe.

The latest release of GGP GIS will allow users to submit information about their spatial data holdings to a catalogue accessible to the public. The data catalogue, GeoNetwork Opensource, harnesses the power of the Internet to enable access to geo-referenced databases, cartographic products and related metadata from a variety of sources.

More information can be found at:http://www.earsc.eu/news/ggp-s-inspire-gis-improves-access-to-public-sector-information

(Source GMES.Info)

In the context of SWIFT, a project coordinated by FDC and funded by the European Commission, FDC has supervised the production of 6 videos presenting the GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) programme and its different services, dedicated respectively to the monitoring of the Earth’s subsystems (land, oceans, atmosphere), to the monitoring of climate change and to emergency management.

The executive production of the films was placed under ESN’s responsibility, a Belgian partner of FDC on this project.

A series of six short videos (2min40 each in average) have been produced in the context of the FP7-funded project SWIFT with the objective to present the European Earth Observation programme to the general public.

A first video provides an overview of the GMES programme while the following five present GMES services.

The “Overview” can be seen here

The service-specific videos can be seen here or in the following pages on this website:

Land monitoring service

Marine environment monitoring service

Atmosphere monitoring service

Emergency management service

Climate change monitoring service

Source GMES.Info