Mr President, Commissioner, I wish first of all to thank the rapporteur, Mr Guido Bodrato, for the remarkable work he has done and for the ability he has demonstrated to listen to divergent opinions and to reconcile them. I believe that this is an altogether remarkable document. This report is particularly exciting because it comes at the end of what has been a historical period for space, thanks in particular to the crucial boost given by Mr Philippe Busquin and his staff. Indeed, for the first time, Europe is outlining something other than a policy to regulate competition and the internal market. It is drawing up a genuinely proactive industrial and technological policy which I hope will reassure all those who sometimes doubt whether Europe provides any real benefit. Europe has achieved these results firstly through Galileo, which has given us the opportunity to create the first European mixed investment company, in other words, a joint company that will support an industrial and technological project. It has also done so by laying the foundations, with the help of the Green Paper, of a space policy that acknowledges that space is a major technology by dint of the importance of its applications in all spheres, including the civilian; a policy that acknowledges the need for proactive political support; a policy that recognises the need to uphold our independence with regard to the emerging powers. This is a point of which Commissioner Busquin has reminded us and one that we feel is extremely important. At the same time, we must remain open to the world because, in the background, extremely fruitful cooperation is taking place with the USA, with Russia, over the Soyuz system at Kourou and with China over Galileo. In other words, space is entering a new era: an era of growing influence for the European Union as a space power that can act completely independently of the world’s superpowers against the backdrop of a crisis, in particular the crisis besetting public budgets. We now need to follow the direction set out in the White Paper. I personally hope that relations between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Union improve. We need the ESA and its skills, but we also need the Union and its political support if we are going to be able to speak with a single voice in the first division. I also wish to see institutional consolidation within the Commission. Because the Treaty provides for space competence to be shared at European level, the Commission will have to ensure that full use is made of this competence. In this regard, I wish to express my attachment to the framework programmes for research and development and for the ‘aeronautical-space line’, which appears for the first time in the sixth FPRD. I am also committed to developing a culture of programmes and the capacity to launch sectoral European programmes through the other Commission services. Having said that, I am thinking in particular of Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) for the environment and of the follow-ups to Lisbon for education. In other words, I wish to congratulate Commissioner Busquin and Mr Bodrato and say that this is a fine example of a dossier in which Europe can do most when it moves ahead with political will. I offer my best wishes for success and continuity for what we have managed to achieve together in the five years of our mandate.

Political group: PSE