authorising the Commission to open negotiations with the Swiss Confederation on an agreement laying down the terms and conditions for the participation of the Swiss Confederation in the European GNSS Agency

EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM

1.CONTEXT OF THE RECOMMENDATION

•Reasons for and objectives of the recommendation

The European GNSS Agency (“the Agency”) is set up by Regulation (EU) 912/2010. It is tasked with significant security and marketing tasks relating to the European GNSS programmes - Galileo and EGNOS - and it is also entrusted by the European Commission with programme management tasks relating to the exploitation of the programmes.

The Agency is open to third countries participation through the conclusion of an international agreement between the Union and the concerned country. Norway is the first non-EU country that already participates in the Agency.

Switzerland has been a long standing partner and contributor to the European GNSS Programmes EGNOS and Galileo since the 1990s through its membership in the European Space Agency (ESA). Swiss industry has specific, sometimes exclusive, technical know-how in certain sectors of satellite navigation technology. Switzerland is hosting an EGNOS ground station.

Following the re-profiling of the EU GNSS Programmes in 2008, the cooperation on satellite navigation between the EU and Switzerland is based on the Cooperation Agreement between the EU, its Member States and Switzerland on European Satellite Navigation Programmes, hereafter ‘the GNSS Cooperation Agreement’, signed in 2013 and provisionally applied since 1 January 2014.

Article 16 of the GNSS Cooperation Agreement stipulates that: ’Switzerland shall have the right to participate in the European GNSS Agency under the conditions to be laid down in an agreement between the European Union and Switzerland. Those negotiations shall start as soon as a request to this effect is submitted by Switzerland and the necessary procedures on the side of the European Union have been completed.’

Switzerland submitted its request to participate in the Agency by letter on 20 May 2014.

Consequently, this document contains a recommendation to open negotiations with Switzerland to establish an agreement laying down the terms and conditions for the participation of Switzerland in the Agency.

Such participation is expected to further strengthen the long standing EU-Swiss partnership in the area of satellite navigation.

For the period 2014-2017 Switzerland has financially contributed to the European GNSS programmes with approximately € 240 million.

•Consistency with existing policy provisions in the policy area

Article 23 of Regulation (EU) N°912/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council setting up the Agency stipulates that: ‘The Agency shall be open to participation of third countries and international organisations. Such participation and the conditions thereof shall be established in an agreement between the Union and that third country or international organisation, in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 218 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.’

Article 16 of the GNSS Cooperation Agreement stipulates that: ‘Switzerland shall have the right to participate in the European GNSS Agency under the conditions to be laid down in an agreement between the European Union and Switzerland.’

•Consistency with other Union policies

The European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (“GNSS”) are important elements in the European Union's policy to ensure the full integration of land, sea and air transport infrastructure for safe, seamless, economic and environmentally friendly navigation. It is part of the European GNSS international strategy to promote cooperation agreements on satellite navigation with a number of countries including Switzerland.

The recommended negotiating directives aim to allow Switzerland, a key partner of the European GNSS Programmes, to participate in the Agency. This involves extending to Switzerland a set of rights and obligations applicable for this participation in the Agency.

The recommendation does not foresee conferring ownership or decision-making rights to Switzerland.