ESA European ministers emphasise space defense & security

	Global Monitoring for Environment and Security

Council underlined the importance of space systems for security. They drew attention to the role of satellite systems – particularly Galileo, EGNOS and GMES – as the backbone for improving Europe’s response to emergencies.

Pre-operational Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) services are already available. The ministers from EU and ESA Member States urged the European Commission to accelerate the transition to full operations, in support of EU external actions.

The ministers reaffirmed GMES as a priority for the EU, and urged the European Commission to take the necessary and timely actions to secure the continuity of the programme and the services it supplies to users.

Ministers highlighted the fact that the policy governing the availability of GMES data is crucial to the secure use of services and to the development of sustainable markets in the value-adding sector.

GMES will work hand-in-hand with the high-accuracy Public Regulated Service of Europe’s Galileo navigation satellite system.

Ministers also stressed that satellite communications represent a key capability in any crisis management operation, especially when ground infrastructures are damaged or destroyed.

As well as calling on the European Commission to ensure the optimal use of space solutions in Europe’s coordination of civil protection, the ministers also turned their attention to the need to protect the satellites.

Ministers expressed concern about the risks that space weather and space debris can pose to space assets.

They took good note of the recently established user requirements for systems designed to monitor and protect space assets and called on the EU, ESA and their Member States initially to exploit fully all existing capacities in this area.

Secure World Foundation Supports Launch of Space Security Index in Europe

The SSI is an annual report on trends and developments related to security and outer space. 

The goal of the Index is to improve transparency with respect to space activities and provide a common, comprehensive knowledge base to support the development of national and international policies that contribute to space security.

Secure World Foundation and the Mission of Canada to the European Union partnered to organize the 2011 Space Security Index Launch in Europe. 

The event was held November 3 in Brussels, Belgium, and was part of Secure World Foundation's Brussels Space Policy Round Table.

Last week's gathering convened leading authorities from Canada, the European Union, the European Space Agency, the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Directorate of the European External Action Service, as well as the European Satellite Operators Association and the Societe europeenne des satellites (SES).

The open discussion took place at the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Brussels.

"Space security is not a topic often discussed in Brussels, thus it was very pertinent to launch the 2011 Space Security Index here," said Agnieszka Lukaszczyk, Secure World Foundation (SWF) European Program Manager, moderator of the round table dialogue, assisted by SWF's Natassa Antoniou.

"Europe needs to be involved in the outer space security discussion and this event facilitated exactly that need," Lukaszczyk. She added that SWF will continue to engage European actors in the space security debate among a host of relevant outer space topics.

Sustainability of outer space
Discussions at the space policy round table focused on significant global activities within outer space, with a particular emphasis on Europe, driven by a number of important occurrences in the space sector. The event centered on the issuing of the 2011 Space Security Index (SSI).

"The Space Security Index has steadily grown in sophistication, and has become a trusted source of information on the activities that may have an impact on the sustainability of outer space," said Cesar Jaramillo, Program Officer, Space Security and Nuclear Disarmament for Project Ploughshares, headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Jaramillo said that the launching of the 2011 edition of the SSI in Brussels "is a testament to the active and relevant role that Europe is playing in current space security discussions."

Europe China at Impasse on GPS Navigation

Negotiations to resolve signal overlaps between European and Chinese satellite navigation systems have made no progress despite more than two years of effort and the issue now poses “a major problem for the security of the EU,” the European Commission says.

“[A] solution will not be found without political support” from top European authorities and from the European Parliament, according to the commission, which is the executive arm of the 27-nation European Union (EU).

In a Jan. 18 update on Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system, the commission suggests that efforts to persuade China to move away from frequencies planned for Galileo’s Public Regulated Service (PRS) have gone nowhere. PRS is Galileo’s equivalent to the U.S. GPS military code, which is encrypted and reserved for defense and security customers.

China is under no legal or regulatory obligation to steer clear of PRS for its Compass/Beidou navigation system, now being deployed, because a signal overlap will not prevent users of either system from accessing their services.

But the overlap will make it impossible for China or Europe to jam one another’s signals without disabling their own service. This is an issue the United States and Europe spent several years negotiating before European authorities agreed to place PRS on a radio frequency some distance from the GPS military code.

The commission’s report says Galileo is in a competitive race with Russian and Chinese navigation constellations to be the global complement to GPS and is at risk of losing the race because of Galileo delays that likely will mean full service is not available before 2020.

The Russian Glonass and Chinese Compass/Beidou efforts have been given priority by their government sponsors. Glonass is now expected to return to full global service by 2012, with Compass/Beidou following perhaps two or three years later.

These services, plus regional systems being built by Japan and India, and the established GPS system, “provide a challenge … in competitive terms,” the commission says.

Russia Advocates Co-operation with NATO on European Security

Russia has called for renewed cooperation with the West on European security, two days ahead of the resumption of high-level talks between Moscow and NATO.

"The moment has come to establish conditions for cooperation between the United States and Russia because without such actors as NATO we cannot seriously talk about security and political ideas on the continent," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, on the sidelines of an OSCE ministerial council in Athens.

Russia has been pressuring NATO to discuss a new European security plan proposed by President Dmitry Medvedev, and presented in final form over the weekend, which he said would finally end Cold War mentalities.

"The basis of this initiative is the intention of forming an indivisible security system in the Euro-Atlantic area" and to reach "a binding accord on European security," Lavrov said in a speech to the Greek-Russian Union.

"We look forward to a precise and constructive response on our initiative," he said. "Russia is not looking to dissolve (existing) European structures and institutions."

Alliance foreign ministers will hold talks on Friday in the highest-level meeting since the NATO-Russia Council was frozen after Moscow's brief war with Georgia in 2008.

Lavrov, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and their NATO counterparts are already due to study a road map for closer cooperation at the Friday talks.

Medvedev's draft treaty was also presented to foreign ministers at the OSCE meeting in Athens but several states said it was too early to comment on it.

Reaction to the proposals has been lukewarm in the West.

Ties between NATO and Russia have recently begun to thaw after tensions rose over the war in Georgia and US plans to extend an anti-missile shield into Europe.

On Wednesday, Lavrov noted that Barack Obama's US presidency had "opened possibilities to reassess Russo-American relations on the basis of principles of equality and reciprocal interest."