Speech by Commissioner
Thierry Breton at the 13th European Space
Conference
Dear Ministers and
representative of Member States, Dear Sophie
Wilmes, Dear Manuel Heitor,
Honourable Members of the European Parliament,
Dear friends from the space sector,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
2020 has been an
extraordinarily turbulent year, with the worst
worldwide health crisis in the last century. We
had to adapt to these new realities in our
personal and professional lives. And the crisis
hit every sectors, the aerospace industry
included.
But Europe – it is my
strong belief – has shown that it can take the
necessary decisions to ensure our collective
resilience.
If 2020 was the year of
solidarity, 2021 will be the year of trust.
Trust in our ability to emerge stronger from
this crisis, act on the lessons learnt and put
forward a new vision.
It is in this spirit, that
I want today to explain how I see the future of
our space policy, one year after being in
office.
Over the past year, we have
made extremely important progress for the future
of Europe’s space policy.
First, we have secured an
important budget - €13.2bn. This is the largest
budget ever at EU level for Space. It comes also
in complement to the investments that will be
done in ESA and in the Member States.
Second, we have agreed on
the new EU space programme, the first of its
kind for Europe. This will give us the capacity
to act on the European space policy in all its
dimension. Implementation modalities are still
under discussion, but I am confident we can find
a way forward in the coming weeks, so to ensure
continuity in the programmes while securing a
modern, agile and efficient governance.
Let me be crystal clear on
one point: the European Space policy will
continue to rely on ESA and its unique
technical, engineering and science expertise.
ESA will continue to be the European Agency for
Space matters. So if we are to be successful in
our European strategy for space, I will need ESA
by my side.
I take this opportunity to
thank Jan Worner for the work he does for Europe
& Space. And I am looking forward to start
working with Josef Aschbacher in a spirit of
trust and joint ambition for Europe & Space.
My strategy for Space in
the years to come lies in 4 main dimensions:
Galileo &
Copernicus - Consolidation
First on consolidating
Galileo & Copernicus.
As Europe, we had the
foresight, 20 years ago, to put in place Galileo
and then later one Copernicus. These were major
decisions, driven by a sense of leadership in
space but also a political willingness to ensure
autonomous satellites positioning and earth
observation.
Today, Galileo and
Copernicus are established infrastructures, the
best in the world and recognised as such, and
also instrumental to the green and digital
transition.
However, it is not the time
to be complacent and congratulate ourselves on
our achievements. We need to think ahead, for
the next 10 to 20 years. Galileo and Copernicus
must evolve. Otherwise, they will fast become
obsolete.
This is why I decided to
frontload the launch of the second generation of
Galileo satellites, with a first launch in 2024.
There was no time to lose on past technologies
as we needed to project Europe into the next
technological races. Yes it might entail more
risks, but this is the new reality of space
business. In Europe, we must learn to take more
risks, to anticipate them, to mitigate them.
I am glad that the industry
understood this message, took up the challenge
and put forward high quality proposals.
Following the technical evaluation, the decision
has been taken. It will be announced by the end
of the month.
With this new generation,
Galileo will operate real technological
breakthroughs with high innovative satellites
and technologies such as digitally configurable
antennas, inter- satellites links, new atomic
clocks technologies or full electric propulsion
systems. The Second Generation of Galileo will
have significantly improved services
capabilities, notably in the field of secured
navigation and resilience against emerging
threats.
When it comes to
Copernicus, we are today designing new missions.
ESA has awarded 6 new precursor missions, all of
which have huge potential, such as the CO2
monitoring mission or the polar observation
mission.
The budgetary realities
will however put some constraints on our ability
to pursue, in a development phase, all these
missions at the same time. It is too early to
decide, but we will have to look at it
carefully, on the basis of the readiness and
performance of the percussing phase, the
relevance for the general interest as well as
the programmatic direction we want to give to
Copernicus.
Besides these new missions,
Copernicus will need to adapt to the new
competition in the dynamic field of earth
observation. We cannot proceed with business as
usual. This is true for the satellites we
launch, for the data we produce and the services
we provide. This will be one of my priority for
the year to come.
Connectivity:
secure digital connections for the future
Second, besides
consolidating the existing, we need also to
anticipate the future challenges and potential
strategic dependencies over the next 20 to 30
years. The power to connect will be essential,
also in 2050.
I consider that Europe
needs to develop rapidly an space based
connectivity initiative as a third
infrastructure besides Galileo & Copernicus
With this infrastructure,
we will:
put an end to dead
zones, giving access to high speed broadband
to everyone;
become autonomous and
avoid dependence on the non-EU initiatives
under development, like we did with Galileo;
project Europe into the
quantum era, ensuring quantum encrypted
communication;
keep the continent
connected whatever happens, including
massive attacks on the internet, which are
no fiction anymore, especially with the
emergence of the quantum computing
capacities.
My objective is to go fast.
And therefore it would be appropriate that the
Commission puts forward this year a proposal to
the European Parliament and the Council so we
can move concretely.
To be ready, we launched a
few weeks ago a study on a secure space-based
connectivity system. The selected consortium
consisting of European satellite manufacturers,
operators and service providers, telco operators
and launch service providers will study the
possible design & development of this project.
This will provide insights
on the technical dimension, but also the
governance structure, the financing, the
missions, the exact scope. I expect their first
feedback in April this year.
My message is clear: This
is not a “business as usual” space project. It
is broader. It will have to rely on the industry
from different sectors. We need to think outside
the box, including in terms of financing, where
we will have to mobilise all possible sources:
EU budget, Member States, ESA and the private
sectors.
Technically, I would like
that this project is designed as a multi-orbital
initiative, combining LEO infrastructures with
others, including GEO. It will complement our
existing infrastructures, creating synergies.
For instance, it will enhance the Galileo signal
(making it able to withstand various potential
interferences), provide to Copernicus data relay
capacity for real-time missions, or host extra
payload space-based sensors to perform Space
Surveillance and Tracking directly from space.
Strategic autonomy
in launchers and Space Traffic Management (STM)
Third, I wish to promote
our strategic autonomy and the imperative need
we have to act upon our existing and future
strategic dependencies.
Enhancing Europe’s
strategic autonomy in space, is not an option.
This is not about closing the door to our
partners. It is about developing and maintaining
our infrastructures, technologies, skills,
competences, and reducing critical dependencies
on third countries, so we can rely on our own if
necessary.
And the first element is
launcher. There are no space policy without
autonomous access to space.
Now that the Space
Programme is adopted, we are ready to aggregate
our institutional demand (Galileo, Copernicus,
future secure connectivity, IOD, IOV) over the
whole seven-year period.
For the first time, we will
also be able to use the EU budget to support the
European launcher industry in the full chain:
from earliest research on new propulsion
technologies to long-term contracts for the
launches of our EU satellites.
But considering the global
market and the offensive positioning of our
competitors, it is not the time for complacency.
Yes, we have fantastic EU launchers, competitive
of the global stage.
But the standards for
launchers are currently being redefined outside
of Europe. We must ask ourselves: will our
current approach successfully get us to 2050,
considering the disruptions in the sector that
we all observe? I strongly doubt it, and I
believe we need a more offensive and aggressive
strategy.
Europe cannot afford to be
divided on this strategic questions. We need to
be able to go beyond the national interests.
There is therefore an urgent need to break the
taboos of this debate, to seat and discuss all
together and define a new set up for Europe to
design a true and genuine European strategy for
launchers.
As the first institutional
customer, but also being in charge of space
policy at large and space industrial
competitiveness specifically, the Commission is
ready to and will play its role.
In that perspective, and in
the same way we did with GAIA X for the Cloud,
we need to go beyond the cooperation between a
limited number of countries – albeit necessary –
and europeanise this reflection. I will
therefore gather in the next months all the
actors to initiate a European Launcher alliance
so to be able to jointly define, with ESA, the
Member States, the European Parliament, the
industry, a common roadmap for the next
generation of launchers and technologies
relevant to ensure an autonomous access to
space.
The other element of
Europe’s strategic autonomy is how we operate in
space thanks to a Space Traffic Management
system.
An increasingly congested
space is threatening the viability and security
of space infrastructures and operations. A
million pieces of debris are in orbit around the
earth - and the number is constantly increasing!
It is expected that in the next years to come,
more than 30 000 additional satellites will be
launched. This is why we already have the Space
Surveillance and Tracking (SST) framework.
But we need to go further
by developing a robust EU STM policy and related
capabilities – starting actively in 2021.
This is a necessary step to
become a credible partner in a balanced
cooperation framework with the US yet to be
established. It is indeed paramount that we do
not end up in a situation where all
technological standards for operation in space
are set beyond our input/control.
Europe as space
entrepreneurship Hub
As a last element of the
space strategy for 2021, I wish to position
Europe as THE hub of space entrepreneurship in
the world.
We have in Europe the
creativity, the start-ups, the entrepreneurs,
the research and innovation capacity. But we do
not have a coherent approach, rather a scattered
and inefficient one
We are duplicating efforts
by not being coordinated, we are wasting
resources by not being organised. We are missing
disruptive technologies by not working together.
Yet, the space sector is
going through a fast and profound
industrialisation process of the same magnitude
that the one the automotive industry went
through. Doing space has become cheaper. This is
good news, but it also calls on all of us to
adapt, public authorities as well as industries.
I see the future of the
European space industry as a combination of
strong institutional leadership and European
approach to New Space, one that is not a mere
copy past of the US.
Now is the time to seek
alternative business models and funding schemes.
I will therefore launch this year a new Space
entrepreneurship initiative: CASSINI.
CASSINI will put in place –
together with the EIB/EIF - a €1bn European
Space Fund to boost start-ups and space
innovation. It will cover actions on the whole
innovation cycle, from business idea to
industrialisation, building on the €100m Space
Equity Pilot we launched last year.
With CASSINI, we want to
stimulate more VC funds to actively invest in
space companies in Europe; but also to get other
industries to invest into space technologies and
solutions. We want also to organise a true
European space incubator, relying on the
strengths of all the actors but putting them
into a coherent and integrated network.
I am also determined to
enable the EU to act as a major anchor customer
or first client (first contract approach), where
appropriate, for large and small projects.
Finally, I intend to put
forward a large scale European in-orbit
technology validation programme – joining force
with ESA – to provide regular access to space to
the most promising technologies to test them.
This is will be a strong accelerator to
innovation in Europe, and a driver to the
necessary change of mindset.
Concluding remarks
Ladies and gentlemen,
In conclusion, 2021 will be
a defining year for our space strategy and for
the position of Europe on the global space
stage. We have enormous challenges to face, with
serious risk of losing ground. We need to be
able to find the resources to reinvent
ourselves, to break taboos and the established
cooperation.
Yes, what I call for is a
rather fundamental overhaul of the way we do
space in Europe. Of course we will continue on
developing our strengths and past successes. But
we need to invent new ones.
And for this, I wish to
work closely with all of you: Member States,
Parliament, industry. And of course with the ESA
– who will have a central role in this
endeavour.
Let us build on what we
have, make it future-proof, and think
strategically.