EN    EN EN 
EN    EN  COMMISSION OF THE E UROPEAN COMMUNITIES 
Brussels, 20.5.2009 
SEC(2009) 640 
  
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 
accompanying the  
 
Proposal for a 
 
REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL 
 
On the European Earth observation programme (GMES) and its initial operations 
(2011 – 2013) 
  
SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT  
  
 
{COM(2009) 223} 
{SEC(2009) 639}  
EN 2   EN EXECUTIVE  SUMMARY 
This Impact Assessment has been prepared  by the Commission services to support the 
Commission proposal for a Regulation of the Eu ropean Parliament and of the Council on the 
European Earth observation programme (GMES)  and its initial operations (2011–2013). It 
also provides an ex-ante  evaluation in line with Article 21(1) of the Implementing Rules of 
the Financial Regulation1.  
GMES is currently and will continue to be co -financed at European, intergovernmental and 
national levels, based on partnerships among  the different players. The EU will both 
coordinate these partnerships and manage its own contribution to GMES, which consists of 
development activities a nd an operational phase. 
Regarding development activities, this contributi on currently consists, in particular, of the co-
financing of research activities under FP 7 und FP 62. First operational serv ices in the field of 
emergency management and land monitoring ar e financed under prep aratory actions in 
addition to some other operational elements in the land domain (Corine Land Cover, Urban Atlas).  
In the beginning of the next decade (2011 – 2013) , operational services could be provided at a 
larger scale. Investments coul d be needed to set up the appr opriate infrastructure for the 
required service processing chain and the roll-out of products based on prototypes developed 
in the previous research actions. FP7 is an R& D tool and thus not designed to support GMES 
initial operations to the extent that these need to be ensured on a more permanent basis. It is 
thus necessary to establish appropriate mechan isms for a Community intervention. This is a 
challenge that the proposed Regulation is intended to address. The fully-fledged GMES 
programme, under which the EU contribution to the overall GMES initiative could be financed in the long run, is e xpected to be in place during th e EU's next multiannual financial 
framework (from 2014). The overall financing n eeds of GMES after 2013 will be subject to 
future analysis led by the Commission, on the basi s of defined cost-sharing principles and a 
cost assessment based on the scope of services.  
In this context, it should be recalled that  the long-term GMES funding approach should be 
developed in a modular way. This  means that new expansions in  the scope of GMES services 
and every new evolution of GMES will be assesse d against the criterion of cost efficiency, 
user needs and EU policy in terests. For the period 2011 – 2013, activities in the following 
fields will be funded in the fram ework of GMES in itial operations: 
• emergency response services;  
                                                
 
1 Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom)  No 2342/2002 of 23 December 2002 laying down detailed rules 
for the implementation of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 on the Financial 
Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (OJ L 357, 31.12.2002, p. 1), 
as last amended by Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 478/2007 of 23 April 2007 (OJ L 111, 
28.4.2007, p. 13). 
2 In FP6, the EU spent €100m on GMES projects, while ESA invested another €100m in the GMES 
service elements projects. In the space theme of the specific programm e "cooperation" of FP7, the EU 
will make €430m available for GMES service project s and procurement of data for these services 
between 2007 and 2013. An add itional €624 m from the space theme of FP 7 will be contributed to 
development of the ESA GMES space component programme, which amounts to € 2246 m (2008 
economic conditions) in total (including  funds from ESA Member States). 
EN 3   EN • land monitoring services; 
and auxiliary activities including: 
• measures supporting the take-up of services by users; 
• data access; 
• GMES space component. 
The following specific criteria were used for the selection of activities for GMES initial 
operations. 
• sufficient technical maturity; 
• continuity with the pr eparatory action 2008-2010; 
• proven potential for the development of downstream services; 
• service providers are industry players a nd would therefore ceas e activities without 
additional intervention from the EU, whereas in the field of marine and atmosphere 
monitoring, services are provided mainly by public institutions that  will be able to continue 
activities (albeit probably at  a less ambitious scale) before 2013 without Community 
support; and 
• regarding emergency services, it is clear that  it would be preferable to make available 
emergency maps on an operationa l basis to civil protection au thorities already in 2011, and 
not 2014. 
The Impact Assessment is based on an extensiv e stakeholder consultation, which confirmed 
the environmental and policy need for GMES services. Lack of operational emergency 
response and land monitoring services under EU coordination in the period 2011–2013 would 
result in the following problems: 
• there is a risk that once the existing research proj ects end (in 2011), during the period 
covered by the proposed Regulation civil pr otection authorities w ould either have no 
access at all to emergency maps or would continue to produce them on their own in an uncoordinated manner, in which case they woul d have to rely on data purchased at very 
high prices;  
• users of land monitoring services (e.g. envi ronmental agencies) would face comparable 
problems between 2011 and 2013, including lack of continuous availability of the relevant 
products and non-availability of  Earth observation data (in pa rticular, satellite data) under 
reasonable conditions; 
• without Community action in the period 2011–2013 enabling initial operational land 
monitoring and emergency response services, there is a risk of  an unacceptable interruption 
between the research projects providing pre-operational servi ces and the services provided 
in a fully fledged GMES programme from 2014; 
• there is a risk that a long gap between the en d of the research activ ities and the start of 
fully fledged operations after 2014 would signifi cantly weaken the boost to the industry’s 
EN 4   EN competitiveness and the emergence of commercially viable solutions between 2011 and 
2013. 
In response to this challenge, the specific objectives of the proposed Regulation are to: 
• enable the provision of emergency response se rvices to civil prot ection authorities; 
• enable the provision of la nd monitoring services to public authorities (including 
environmental agencies) in Europe; 
• contribute to the production and availability of environmental info rmation to the public; 
• stimulate the growth of the downstream Ea rth observation sector in terms of jobs, 
innovation and internatio nal competitiveness. 
The operational objectives of the proposed Regulation are: 
• to enable the provision of the following opera tional emergency response services between 
2011 and 2013: 
– European mapping service for emergency response; and 
– product integration for emergency response; 
• to enable the provision of the following opera tional land monitoring services between 2011 
and 2013: 
– periodic land cover mapping service; 
– dynamic land monitoring activities, includi ng essential climate variables to 
support climate change monitoring;  
• to perform auxiliary activities between 2011 and 2013, including measures to support take-
up of operational services by users, data proc urement to support services and GMES space 
component operations. 
The policy options open to a ddress the objectives defined in Chapter 3 of the Impact 
Assessment are: 
• Baseline scenario ("Do nothing"); 
• Option 1: Open method of coordination only; 
• Option 2: Regulatory action; 
• Option 3: Community financing. 
These options are not mutually exclusive. All three could possibly be combined. For the sake 
of clarity, however, the impact of each of thes e options is analysed separately. Furthermore, 
GMES initial operations will be implemented w ithin the governance framework described in 
detail in the Communication en titled “Global Monitoring for Environment and Security: we 
care for a safer planet”, COM(2008) 748 of 12.11.2008, and the accompanying Impact 
EN 5   EN Assessment. Finally, the analysis of the diffe rent options is based on the assumption that 
GMES data and information will be fully  and openly accessible. The Commission will 
continue to explore whether the development of market opportunities and cost based user 
charges could eventually allow the reduction of  the proportion of pub lic investment after 
2014. 
The table set out below compares  the options in the light of  the above objectives and the 
principle of cost-effectiveness. 
Option Likelihood of achieving the 
objectives and corresponding 
benefits Total cost (including Community and 
Member State (MS) budgets) Cost-
effectiveness 
1 + Community budget: 
•Appropriations - 
•Human resources + 
•Admin. expenditure + Costs in MS 
 
++++ + 
2 + Community budget: 
•Appropriations - 
•Human resources + 
•Admin. expenditure + Costs in 
MS  
  
++++ + 
3 +++ Community budget: 
•Appropriations ++ 
•Human resources + 
•Admin. expenditure + Costs in MS 
+++ +++ 
The likelihood of achieving the objectives is di scussed in sections 5.2.1, 5.3.1 and 5.4.1 of the 
Impact Assessment. Options 1 and 2 are considered  unlikely to achieve the specific objectives 
of GMES initial operations owing to (i) probl ems with provision of pan-European services, 
(ii) the lack of capacity and know-how in so me Member States and (iii) the lack of 
sustainability (in particul ar for budgetary reasons). 
Section 5.4 and Annex V quantify the benefits which would materialise if objectives are fully 
met. In the reference year (2012), annual bene fits linked directly to GMES would include 
€135m for flood services, €9m for wildfire serv ices, a minimum of €75m for deforestation 
and €56m for urban planning, taking into consid eration that these figures (i) are based on 
conservative assumptions and (ii) do not includ e benefits relating to, for example, emergency 
response to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, nor benefits linked to efficiency gains in 
agriculture and rural development.  
Regarding costs, it is not sufficient to focus on EC costs only, which wo uld add up to € 150m 
for the whole period covered by GMES initial operations (2011–2013), (including € 43 m for 
accompanying research activities financed under FP 7). Costs at Member St ate level must also 
be taken into consideration. Although no detail ed estimates for the costs incurred by the 
Member States are available, previous experi ence from the Corine land cover programme and 
data submitted by the EEA show that they could be  three times higher than the EC costs. It is 
assumed that both options 1 and 2 would lead to  higher overall costs for the EU and Member 
States due to (i) higher costs for procurement of the data needed to provide the services, given 
the lack of economies of scale and countervailing buying power, and (ii) the need to duplicate 
infrastructure in the case of totally decentralised provision of the service. 
EN 6   EN Option 3 is therefore the preferred opti on for the period 2011–2013, as it has been 
demonstrated that this option would (i) make it highly likely that the specific objectives of 
GMES initial operations would be met, and ( ii) could reduce the overa ll costs, including by 
means of centralised procuremen t of the data needed for the services. In any event, EU 
financing should be accompanie d by coordination activities. No  EC regulation specifically on 
GMES is likely to enter into  force during the period cove red by the proposed Regulation. 
Evaluation tasks will be carried out in three pha ses (ex ante, interim and ex post). In addition 
to this Impact Assessment , it is envisaged that the Commission will carry out evaluations of i) 
the preparatory action, and (ii) data access activities, in orde r to prepare the first work 
programme for operational activities. Additiona lly, an interim evalua tion report will be 
prepared no later than the end of 2012. Finally, an ex post evaluation will be prepared after 
the end of initial operational activities. 
The Commission will ensure that contracts a nd grants concluded in the framework of 
operational emergency and land monitoring servi ces provide for supervision and financial 
control by the Commission, if necessary by means of on-the-spot checks, including sample 
checks, and audits by the Court of  Auditors. If need be, the Co mmission could be assisted by 
external technical experts when monitoring the implementation of the programme. On the 
basis of the results of the on-the-spot checks,  the Commission will ensure that, if necessary, 
the scale or the conditions of a llocation of the financial contri bution originally approved and 
also the timetable for payments are adjusted. 
In addition to financial supervision, the Commis sion will put in place me chanisms to ensure 
the continuous quality of the services provi ded. Finally, the Commission will organise user 
fora in order to ascertain th at services are user-driven.