Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-28-Speech-3-166"
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"en.20040128.13.3-166"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are all aware that the peoples of united Europe are waiting for a grand design. Our fellow citizens often experience Europe only through the distorting mirror of standards, rules and constraints, and we must make space exploration one of the top ambitions of European integration, an ambition that would bring our fellow citizens both pride and definite benefits in their everyday lives, like the Galileo project.
Pursuing a grand design requires resources, however. And today there is not sufficient political will to give European space policy the credits it needs. The Commission has tried, as the White Paper shows. An extra 4.6% increase in space expenditure every year is good, but it is a minimum. The Union’s Heads of State must understand that when President Bush is ordering flights to Mars and China is successfully launching its first manned spacecraft, Europe can no longer allow itself to lag behind. The time has come to change gear and give a real boost to space expenditure.
To do that, we must look to the states, through the ESA and the large national agencies, which, like the DLR in Germany or the CNES in France, have irreplaceable experience. But we should also go beyond the intergovernmental level. The draft Constitution for Europe provides for the beginnings of a Community space policy. I am pleased about that, provided that in return for these new prerogatives the Union becomes a new source of funding for space. We cannot demand new competences without assuming the cost. And we must at the same time continue to seek external funding. The cooperation with India and China through the Galileo project is an example to be followed and built upon as the opportunities arise, with the Russian Federation, for example, like France has just done with the plan to establish a Soyuz launch pad in Kourou.
I will finish by saying that if we really do not want Europe to be excluded from the conquest of space, funding cannot remain public. We must lift the taboos and say clearly, as the resolution invites us to do, that the funding of space policy must be opened up to private industry."@en1
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