House of Commons - Trade and Industry

Select Committee on Trade and Industry Tenth Report

III. EUROPEAN SPACE ACTIVITY

13. Almost two thirds of BNSC's budget goes to ESA, around £113m of £181m in 1999/0; the rest is spent on national programmes, much of it in bilateral or multilateral cooperation with other countries.[34] ESA was formed in 1975 by the merger of the European Space Research Organisation and the European Launcher Development Organisation. It now has 14 Member States and its 1999 budget was_2,650bn.[35] The budget is split into mandatory programmes and optional programmes. In 1998 approximately 23% of the total ESA budget was devoted to mandatory programmes and 73% to optional programmes.[36]

Programmes carried out under the general budget and the science budget are mandatory; they include ESA's basic activities (studies on future projects, technology research, shared technical investment etc) and all Member States contribute to these programmes on a scale based on their national income. The UK contributed almost 14% of the total mandatory expenditure programmes in 1998, behind Germany (25%), France (17.3%) and Italy (14.7%).[37]

Optional programmes cover such areas as Earth observation, telecommunications, space transport (Ariane) and manned spaceflight. In 1998 the UK contributed 5.6%, behind France (33.28%), Germany (26.1%) and Italy (11.9%).[38]

14. Lord Sainsbury told us that, in terms of working with ESA, "three or four years ago, we were really negative to space, we made it pretty clear that we did not really want to participate in this any more than we had to".[39] Despite not significantly adjusting the amount of money the UK puts into ESA and its relatively low level of participation in optional programmes, the UK now plays a more central and respected role in ESA. As the Minister put it "we do have more influence than perhaps flows from just the sums of money we put in".[40] Professor Culhane agreed, stating that the UK was 'punching above our weight'.[41] The ESA Science Programme, for example, receives 14% of its subscription from the UK, but the UK participates at a level of 20-25% in defining its future programme and proposing missions of UK interest in response to ESA's announcements of opportunity.[42]

15. Substantial support was expressed in evidence to us for the work of ESA and the UK's participation in ESA programmes. UKISC "strongly support" it.[43] BARSC told us "we think ESA is an excellent mechanism to develop technology and develop systems".[44] ASTOS support general UK involvement in ESA.[45] Logica "strongly supports" the UK Government focus on ESA as a mechanism for implementing UK space programmes.[46] Given the nature of ESA's operations, there are inevitably differences in opinion over which programmes the UK should be involved in.[47] Nonetheless, there was little indication that the UK should not be committing the current levels of resources to ESA.

16. However, some concerns were expressed over the balance between ESA and national funding. The RAS stated that the balance between the programmes in space science is one that "causes some concern" to their members.[48] They also stated that the desire to extract the maximum return for the UK membership of ESA had reduced "the opportunity of independent bilateral collaborations to near-negligible proportions" and that this was damaging for UK space science.[49] Professor Culhane told us that, personally, he would like to see a little less spent on ESA and more on bilaterals.[50] PPARC has a small budget line to allow space scientists to take up opportunities outside the ESA programme, but would like to support a greater participation than they do in bilateral missions with NASA, Japan, France, Germany, Sweden etc.[51] ASTOS noted that they would "encourage BNSC to take a more pro-active role in identifying opportunities beyond ESA".[52] Any withdrawal from ESA programmes would have serious detrimental consequences for the UK space industry. However, if the UK space budget is increased by a significant amount, careful consideration should be given as to whether this increase should redress the current balance of national as against ESA spend.

ESA and the European Union

17. The European Commission (EC) have been involved in space for some years, particularly in space infrastructure. There are a number of EC programmes run independently of ESA. For example, in the UK DERA undertakes EC funded activities in Earth observation and navigation. One of these is to assist in fishing vessel detection and monitoring from space.[53] There is an increasing recognition that space has the potential to provide information systems to underpin EU policies. The Space Advisory Group, set up in 1993, is comprised of representatives of Member States and ESA and provides a forum for discussion between Member States, ESA and the Commission. In 1996, the Commission set up a Space Co-ordination Group to ensure that the various space polices were coherent and to provide for regular consultation with industry and organisations dealing with space. The EC Fifth Framework Programme (FP5) funds collaborative research, technological development and demonstration in key areas relevant to European competitiveness, the quality of life, and European policy development. The FP5 document contains a footnote stating that "there will be specific co-ordination of the activities relating to space technology application carried out within each of the thematic programmes".[54] The Commission is also fully behind the drive to develop the Galileo programme (see paragraphs 43 to 46).

18. In 1998 the Councils of ESA and the European Union adopted Ministerial resolutions calling for a joint space strategy to be developed by the end of 2000.[55] The preliminary conclusions produced in June 1999 on the synergy between the European Community and ESA were that EU policies increasingly provided strategic orientation and a frame for ESA activities, and that increased synergy between the Community and ESA (and hence between the activities of the Commission and those of ESA) required increased transparency.[56] We learnt in Brussels in February 2000 that the Commission and ESA were looking at such issues as how to link national, multinational, intergovernmental and Community policies; how to determine the optimal mix between co-operation and competition; how to secure the existence in Europe of a world-wide competitive industrial sector; and what were the options to combine various funding and decision mechanisms.[57] The UK Government's Explanatory Memorandum (EM) of July 1999, on the preliminary conclusions published in Towards a Coherent Approach to Space, noted that it "contentiously proposes satellite infrastructure as an asset for Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)".[58] A Commission working document of February 2000 suggests that the CFSP considerations may need further discussion, including the broader meaning of security, and a global surveillance capability for crisis anticipation.[59] The Government EM, whilst strongly supporting greater co-operation and openness between the ESA Executive and the Commission, and others, also thought that the independent role of ESA as the focus of European technological expertise for the sector should be maintained.[60] This reflects a fear in the space community that the European Commission is excessively interested in the application of space science and technology to the exclusion of research and development, and that should ESA effectively cease to be an independent entity and be funded through the EC, space science and technology would suffer. We would be concerned if the obvious technical expertise and commitment to space science in ESA were to be diminished as a consequence of new ESA/Commission working arrangements. The UK must continue to participate fully and comprehensively in the strategy discussions and to ensure that the UK's interests in science, and its particular security concerns, are reflected in the outcome. We look forward to the publication of the joint space strategy by the end of the year.