SPACE POLICY : MEPS WANT GMES IN EU BUDGET.

• Position: Members of the European Parliament - Global Monitoring for Environment and Security

Members of the European Parliament want the Union's earth monitoring programme, GMES, to be financed from the EU budget. This has been the case until now, but under the European Commission's budget proposals for 2014-2020, the programme would be financed on the basis of an intergovernmental agreement, outside the EU budget. In a resolution on the EU's space policy, adopted in plenary in Strasbourg on 19 January, MEPs express determination to place this programme back into the multiannual financial framework 2014-2020. Any other decision "could cancel out the huge investments made so far," warned rapporteur Aldo Patriciello (EPP, Italy) before the vote. MEPs find that asking member states to finance the programme would result over the longer term in higher costs, inequalities in access to information, a probable temporary suspension of the programme and dependence on non-European space infrastructures. Expressing her views in a written statement, Christine de Veyrac (EPP, France) declared that the Commission's proposal was "a danger to our space observation programme and consequently to a whole section of our space industry". She added that "it is essential for the European Union to assume governance of this programme as well as its financing".

The EP is on the same wavelength as member states, which are preparing to adopt Council conclusions reiterating the strategic nature of the GMES programme. They also...