Space is the key to European development - report
Europe has to use space development as a tool to attain its major economic environmental and security goals, according to the report of the 'three wise men' commissioned by European Space Agency's (ESA) director general Antonio Rodata to look into European space policy. The three consist of Carl Bildt (former Swedish president and UN envoy to the Balkans), Jean Peyrelevade (president of Credit Lyonnais) and Lothar Spath (former president of the German state of Baden-Wurttemburg) who make clear the report's aims in its introduction. These are broadly to ensure that space becomes an integral part of European policy and the report points to Earth observation, environmental matters and overall security as some of the key issues with which space research can help. 'We can no longer see space and space policy as separate from other European activities,' says the report. It sees a common European space policy as having many potential benefits for Europe, including - reducing Europe's dependence on non-European systems in key areas - helping to attain the Lisbon goal of becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world - making Europe the alternative to the US for the world (the US accounts for 80 per cent of world space expenditure) - provide a basis for a closer relationship with Russia - preventing the world from relying on single point failure systems and secondly prevent other competitors (from Asia in particular) from developing their own infrastructures' The report goes on to list a number of recommendations, including: - a closer relationship between ESA and the European Union, such as putting space on the agenda of the European Council and the European Commission joining the ESA Council - using ESA's capabilities for more security-oriented aspects of the European space policy - using ESA developments as potential businesses (as was the case with GPS which was developed initially purely for the US Navy but which is now the source of enormous commercial success) The introduction concludes that much more is possible in the space sector in Europe. 'We see Europe emerging as more capable of both collaboration and competition on the global scene. We are convinced that this will strengthen the possibilities of Europe to achieve its other aims as well,' the authors say.