newsitems EU Rapporteurs to EuroFora: Space project GMES threatened for costs equal to Turkey unpopular EU bid
EU Rapporteurs to EuroFora: Space project GMES threatened for costs equal to Turkey unpopular EU bid
*Strasbourg/EU Parliament/Angelo Marcopolo/- EU's probably most important and topical, High-Tech. Space program, GMES, ("Global Monitoring for Environment and Security") may be threatened by costs' reductions for sums equal to ... Turkey's controversial and unpopular EU bid, revealed the replies to "EuroFora"s Questions by Inter-Group on "Sky and Space" leading MEPs, and EU Parliament's Rapporteurs on GMES, in a Press Conference in Strasbourg where the issue started to be discussed in view of imminent, forthcoming EU developments and decisions :
A group of MEPs from various political Groups and Countries recently wrote to EU Commission's President Barroso a Letter protesting against a Draft which is going to exclude, for the 1st time, GMES from EU's Multi-Annual Financial Perspectives 2014-2020, restricting its Funding to merely annual EU Budgets' decisions, with the obvious risk to provoke uncertainties incompatible with long-term Investments, and to leave the strategic High-Tech project, totally or partly, at one or another moment, in limbo.
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"EuroFora"'s questions to EU Parliament's Repporteurs on GMES started by reminding the fact that "there were also in the Past some Delays on funding another landmark EU's Space Programs, such as, f.ex. GALILEO (on Satellite Navigation Systems), and Europe lost an opportunity to have, f.e. China a.o. 3rd Countries paticipate for some 400 Millions €.. So that, now China has its own Satellite Navigation System.. Do you think that there might be similar, or even worse, risks now if EU delays also its GMES program ?", we asked the Inter-Party Group of MEPs.
=> But, entering substantial issues, "EuroFora"s 2nd Question concluded by asking the competent EU Rapporteurs from various poliical groups, to clarify "How much is the Money, what kind of volume of Money are we speaking of (in the case of GMES) ? Can we compare it, f.ex., with other (EU) expenses, for which the Money apparently exists, in order to have Debates about real and concrete Political Choices ?".
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Norbert Glante, experienced former EU Parliament's Rapporteur on GALILEO, and current co-Rapporteur on GMES for Industry/Research, a German Socialist MEP, started to reply to "EuroFora"s question by observing, first, that "these are 2 Differend EU Projects : GALILEO is an Infrastructure project, that the EU Commission is funding wholesale"
- "At the beginning, the GALILEO project was meant to be a Public-Private partrneship. Two consortia competed, but afterwards they went together, they merged, and there was, therefore, no more competition. With the consent of (EU) Parliament, the Commission decided, then, to fund itself the program.
- Now", ²"it's true that "we had Delays", but "they were not just for the Funding : There were (also) Technical Delays, there was f.ex. a Partner in China that steped out, etc.". However, "Today, our Hope is that EU Commission is able to send out 18 Satellites in orbit by 2014, and guarantee a 1st step. This is not the original idea, but hopefully it will happen", he concluded.
+ "GMES requires 5,8 Billions €, which means that we can get Satellite configurations in Orbit. National/Private Telecommunication Satellites could be added to. They could provide Data to create (New) Services. If you put the 5,8 Billions €, this is Money which should be ready to be provided during the next Financial Perspectives Period of 2014 - 2020, and, if we have a Budget Debate, when we look at the Financial Perspectives, we know that the (EU) Parliament has significant clouts and influence."
- "You have to set Priorities, of course you do. But I think that when it comes to Space, when it comes to Industrial Policy, I think that we (EU) have a Competitice Advantage to the World, that we need to keep that. "We need to keep our Technological Future in our own hands. We should do it here, and I think that we should do it in the EU, and, therefore, in the EU Budget". Because, "if we start to pull away, we'll end up with a situation where an American Ambassador will come to fruition and say : - "Just let Stop everything, and buy it all from the States !", Glante warned.
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+ But Italian, ChristianDemocrat/EPP MEP, Aldo Patriciello, EU Parliament's co-Rapporteur on Satellites, gave an even more specific answer particularly to "EuroFora"s most crucial, 2nd question (See supra) :
- "I want to remind that it's important to think about the Funding, by considering (also) what it had costed until Today : GMES has costed 3 Billions € until Today. So, if we don't invest in it, this basically means Wipping away all those enormous investments and efforts made until today", he pointed out.
- But "GMES is critical into tackling Climate Change, Environmental degradation, Border Control, Maritime Surveillance, Civil Protection, etc. i.e. ¨Priorities which are part and parcell of our (EU)'s overall Strategies" => In consequence, "I think that here, we need to stand Firm in the (EU) Parliament. We need to make Sure that the EU Commission includes the GMES in the 2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework with around 800 Millions € in order to get to the 5.8 Billions € which have been mentioned".
- "But, let me remind you, that this Budget is important also because of the Economic Return for Europe : It is estimated that the Economic Return would be 69 Billions € in the long run. So, this is also going to help (EU's) Economic Recovery", he warned.
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- "Just to make it clear", "EuroFora" questioned further Patriciello : - In other words, "this (GMES) means something around 900 Millions € per year, what Mr. Glande said. i.e. just what EU gives f.ex. for simple Accession Negotiations with one Country, f.ex. Turkey", we observed.
=> -"Yes : It (GMES) is 850 to 900 Millions € per Annum", admitted Patriciello, i.e. almost exactly what EU spends annually just for Turkey's controversial and unpopular EU bid !..
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- "Let me give you un Example, which is the Conservation of Rain Forests", went on to add in Reply to "EuroFora" Questions, Professor Vittorio Prodi, President of the "Sky and Space" InterGroup, and EU Parliament's Rapporteur on GMES and Environment : "Those Countries where Rain Forests are allocated, if they want to help the rest of the Planet, then, they have a Right to Compensatory Payments. Now, all of this could get into the parts of the (CO2) Emissions' Trading Scheme. And this is a contribution which could mean that the GMES has a real boon in terms of Financial Resources, so that, basically, this Infrastructure will pay for itself, in very short order"...
- "Therefore, I think that it's absolutely Right that we focus on these Points" (on comparing Funds, as "EuroFora" suggested : Comp. Supra). "Not only this program will pay for itself, but it will also have an immediate counter-cyclical impact", Prodi concluded.
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- "On issues like GALILEO and GMES we always had the large Majority of EU Parliament with us. So, we intend to ask to (EU) Member States to put the Money where their Mouth is, and to recognize where the Value is", particularly when they speak about (EU) Industrial policy, Growth, etc., Glante anounced about forthcoming MEPs debates and Votes.
- "These are precisely the kind of projects where there is a Time Gap between the Investment and the Return. .. So, if an IPP doesn't work, then, we have to insist on Project Bonds : This in a European Value Infrastructure !", Prodi concluded.
(NDLR : "DraftNews", as already sent earlier to "EuroFora"s Subrscribers/Donors. A more accurate and complete Final Version is due asap).
***
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Scientific innovation joined to Faith for Human Rights, Eastern Partnership and fight against the Crisis, but above all, the need to overcome the "Crisis of Trust" from EU Citizens, are the main priorities for new EU Parliament's President, Polish Jerzy Buzek, that a 555-votes-strong majority of MEPs on July 14, Strasbourg made a living symbol of the fact that, 20 years after the fall of Berlin Wall (1989 - 2009) there is no more an Eastern or Western Europe, but only one Europe, as the head of the largest group of MEPs, ChristianDemocrats/EPP, Joseph Daul, stressed after the event.
Speaking later to a group of Strasbourg's Journalists, including "EuroFora", the new EU Parliament's President clarified his stance on concrete topical issues, as f.ex. that of Turkey's controversial EU bid, which was one of the main issues of the June 2009 Electoral campain, clearly won by his party of ChristianDemocrats/EPP : - "At present, Turkey does not fullfil none of EU conditions", he stressed, (See infra).
Buzek is well known in Strasbourg and to "EuroFora" as EU Rapporteur for the Framework Program of Scientific Research and Development of Technologies. A Natural Science Professor from the Historic and Religious landmark Polish City of Częstochowa, active in the famous Solidarnosk grass-roots social movement, he served 4 years as Prime Minister (1997-2001), before being elected as MEP in 2004 and 2009, after he brillantly won the latest EU Election at the head of his party (EPP) almost doubling the number of its MEPs from 15 to 28 !
- "Innovation" and "Energy safety", as well as fight against the "Cimat change", but also "Eastern Partnership", the "Mediterranean", "Strategic partnerships" with Russia, the USA, etc, and the search for "solutions to the Economic Crisis" that EU Citizens "expect" from us, will be his "priorities", announced from the outset the new EU Parliament's President, reminding also that the quest for "Human and Civic Rights" played an important role in his experience with the Solidarnosc grass-roots social movement in Poland's History
But, the most important of all, is the urgent need to overcome the "Crisis of Trust" between EU Institutions and the People he stressed : - EU "Citizens often don't understand us", denounced Buzek, launcing a call to "do anything for EU Citizens to understand our work" in EU Parliament : "We (MEPs) need to make EU Citizens involved" in "what we are doing every week, in Strasbourg and Brussels", he proposed. Pointing f.ex. to the hot "Debates" with "strong arguments" exchanged between MEPs during the preparation of their Legislative Decisions, in Committees, delivering often hard struggles between initially opposed points of view, long before forging a majority at the final vote, sometimes more than a year..
Therefore, EU Parliament will be "open to your criticism, for discussion and exchange of views", he promissed to Journalists in Strasbourg.
In this way, Buzek, in fact, highlighted "EuroFora"s main idea, that we strongly advocate since 1997-2007, to systematicaly and actively involve EU Citizens in public debates during the decision-making process of important EU measures, which affect their lives and the society in which they live, (and not only just a few weeks each 4 or 5 Years at the eve of EU Elections)...
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This is related also to the symbolic gift that Buzek chose to give to the out-going former EU Parliament's President, Hans Gert Poettering, (2007-2009), his collegue in the ChristianDemocrats/EPP, who brillantly won 2009 EU Elections in Germany : A genuine statute of sainte Barbara crafted in Silesia's black Coal by Polish Miners : Those simple but strong people who fought for social change against some technocrats and bureaucrats disguissed into so-called "real-socialists" of old times. (PHOTO).
It's enough to have seen a popular open air mass, at Warsaw's center, with many thousands of people, old and young, simple workers and intellectuals mixed together, with references to Poland's history and struggles for survival and liberty, through various ages, (as fex. that organized at the eve of CoE's 2005 panEuropean Heads of State and Government for the beatification of late Pope John-Paul II), in order to understand what such symbols mean..
But, overcoming the "Crisis of Trust" with EU Citizens obviously implies also to rectify any errors done in the past, fex. on Turkey's controversial EU bid, with controversial decisions taken in 1999 and 2004 to give a "candidate" status and to start EU negotiations, provoking an unprecedented series of 3 "No" to EuroReferenda and 3 Majoriy Abstentions in EU Parliament Elections : 1999, 2005 and 2009, (even if the latest one succeeded to decelerate and almost stop the drop of participation rates, opening hopes for vote's revival after an electoral campaign clearly critical to Turkey's claims in several mainstream EU countries)
Therefore, Buzek was faced with manifold critical Questions on EU Enlargement, most of them citting concrete examples of certain political problems : But his replies were almost always given as a matter of general principle :
F.ex. Questioned on the suspension of EU - Croatia talks because of a Border conflict with EU Member Slovenia, Buzek prefered to speak about principles :
- "We know that during Enlargement, the process can be blocked by failure to resolve this kind of issues", This concerns also other enlargments' cases", and "these rules are always in force" he warned.
But Buzek avoided to directly reply to a queston on "French and German EPP' calls to define the Borders of Europe", as a German journalist asked him by making a reference to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and German Chancellor Angie Merkel's, critical statements on Turkey at the June 2009 Electoral campain.
- "Concerning Enlargement, there's always the same rules : There have to be Criteria, which have to be respected if a Country wants to join the EU", he started to simply reply.
- "For my country (Poland) it took us 15 Years to fullfil these Criteria", Buzek reminded, indicating, if proportions are kept, that Turkey, fex. would have to spend some 25 years before eventually joining the EU..
- "Countries wishing to join the EU need to Change their Systems", as we (Poland and other former Eastern European Countries) did, he stressed.
- "'For me, meeting the condition of Human Rights is one of the Key conditions for membership in the EU", preferring again to speak from the point of view of General Principles, on the occasion of an untimely question on Serbia (which is not even a candidate yet)...
- "Turkey" has, "first of all", to fullfil (EU) Copenhagen criteria". Bevause, currently, none of them is fullfiled by Turkey", New EU Parliament's President, denounced, speaking later to a group of Journalists, including "EuroFora".
In particular, on Human Rights : - "We (EU) can never forget Human Rights", because "this is at the very Foundations of the EU", Buzek added.
On the contrary, when he referred to EU Enlargment for the "Western Balkans Countries ", Buzek appeared upbeat, finding "promising situations", despite "difficulties" in the Past, since "Countries are queuing to become EU members", and this "generated changes", as he said.
As for Russia, Buzek observed that it was a "very important" country, located "in the same Continent", Europe, "close to our borders", and "we need eachother". "But Russia' has 'differend poblems : "They claim that their system is Democratic, but rules are differend", and we must be "aware of such differencies", fex. "on Human Rights", that we can't ignore, as he said;
Concerning China, where a journalist observed that the recipient of EU Parliament's latest "Sakharov prize" for freedom of thought is "still in prison", Buzek found that since the 1999 events in Tien Amin square, "we see differencies on Human Rights still today", and expressed his "support" for those who try to ameliorate the situation.
On the contrary, speaking recently to "EuroFora" he strongly supported the idea for an EU - Ukraine cooperation, fex. between Airbus and Antonov, in order to build a less costly but more performant than the old and problematic A400M, new Military Transport Airplane : - "They (Ukranian Antonov Company) can certainly do it. I'm sure they can. It's a good Idea, and I'd be glad if it was done", he told us. (See : http://www.eurofora.net/newsflashes/news/airbusantonov.html )