Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-12-Speech-1-104"
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"en.20030512.9.1-104"2
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"Mr President, it is a pleasure for me to take the floor today on behalf of my colleague, Commissioner Busquin, and on behalf of the Commission. I would like to begin by congratulating the European Parliament on its initiatives aimed at drawing the attention of the States of the Union – which we should not forget are the European protagonists in the space sector – but drawing the attention of those States to the need to take courageous and significant decisions in a sector in crisis, as the space sector currently is.
The broad debate arising from the Commission’s Green Paper on European space policy highlights several points. Firstly, I would mention the need to go ahead with a restructuring of the launcher sector in order to guarantee Europe access to space.
Secondly, I would like, together with the whole of the Commission, to re-affirm how urgent it is to reach an agreement within the European Space Agency on Galileo. I would like to say, ladies and gentlemen, that I believe it essential that there be an agreement within the European Space Agency since we have been waiting too long. First it was certain countries, and now it is others. In any event, at Community level, we reached an agreement a whole year ago during the Spanish Presidency. Unfortunately, an agreement is still to be reached within the Space Agency where I would remind the honourable Members that the intergovernmental system operates.
With regard to the Galileo issue, I would like to point out that this is one of the great essential projects if we are to maintain our space sector, and that, furthermore, if we do not establish the joint undertaking very quickly, which must move this project ahead, we risk facing difficulties when it comes to continuing to maintain the adjudication of frequencies which we achieved having overcome every type of obstacle in 2000. I would therefore like once again to insist on the European interest, on the need for an agreement to be reached on this point as soon as possible and that national differences be resolved.
Finally, the Commission supports the work of the Convention aimed at including space as a shared competence in the Union Treaty in the future. The initial approaches emerging from the process of consultation on the Green Paper are converging in favour of the definition of a space policy for the European Union, as well as its application by means of an ambitious space programme.
Before I finish, however, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say that the existence of a common policy in the defence sector at least, in the arms sector, would also assist enormously the work and activity of the space sector. We know, ladies and gentlemen, that, for our most direct competitors, the most significant support for this sector comes from precisely that source of funding."@en1
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