EU space endeavour will put more jobs on the ground

21.06.2017 8:15

EU space endeavour will put more jobs on the ground

“Space is everywhere and concerns almost all public policies. It is a strategic domain. We have to therefore guarantee independent access to space for Europe. It is a major step to achieve a resilient European security and defence policy”, said Françoise Grossetête MEP, EPP Group Spokeswoman on the Report ‘A Space Strategy for Europe’ adopted by the European Parliament’s Industry Committee today.

“To ensure independent, cost-effective and reliable access to space, we have to offer visibility to European industry, especially the launchers’ industry, to ensure its competitiveness", Grossetête added.

The European Union has plans to launch more than 30 satellites for the Galileo (navigation) and Copernicus (e.g. information based on space data) programmes alone in the next 10 to 15 years. Total activity in the space sector makes up for more than 230,000 jobs and it generates a value of €46-54 billion.

“But we have to feed more rocket fuel into the system if we are to meet the current and future challenges in the space sector and assure the future of jobs and growth. Each European country has sized up what is at stake today in the space sector. The ambitions should now be supported by a strong EU budget for the Space Strategy”, said Françoise Grossetête.

The EPP Group also underlined the need to include space in legislation and carry out a systematic 'space check' before it tables any new legislative and non-legislative proposals. We should step up and exploit the full economic exploitation of the Galileo, EGNOS and Copernicus programmes for instance by improving the access to and the processing of Copernicus data in order to enable enterprises, SMEs and start-ups in particular, to develop applications based on space data.

“We have to support Galileo and Copernicus to develop concrete services and applications for our SMEs and our citizens”, Grossetête concluded.

Note to editors

The EPP Group is the largest political group in the European Parliament with 216 Members from 27 Member States