EN    EN EN 
 
EN    EN  COMMISSION OF THE E UROPEAN COMMUNITIES 
Brussels, 20.5.2009 
SEC(2009) 639 
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 
accompanying the  
 
Proposal for a 
 
REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL 
 
on the European Earth observation progr amme (GMES) and its initial operations 
(2011 – 2013) 
  
IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND EX ANTE EVALUATION  
{COM(2009) 223} 
{SEC(2009) 640} 
 
EN 2   EN  
IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND EX ANTE EVALUATION 
1. PROCEDURAL ISSUES AND CONSULTATION OF INTERESTED PARTIES  
1.1. Organisation and timing 
This Impact Assessment accompanies a legislativ e proposal for a Regulation of the European 
Parliament and the Council on the European Earth observation programme (GMES) and its 
initial operations (2011 – 2013) an d constitutes an ex ante ev aluation in line with Article 
21(1) of the Implementing Rule s of the Financial Regulation1. It was elaborated in 
consultation with a Steering group consisting of  representatives of the following DGs: ENV, 
BUDG, RTD, AGRI, ESTAT, JRC, RTD, TA XUD, DEV, AIDCO, ECHO, INFSO, TREN, 
RELEX, MARE, REGIO and JLS, following th e publication of a Co mmunication entitled 
"GMES: we care for a safer pl anet" (the "2008 Communication")2 that describes an approach 
for the establishment of a stable financi ng and governance framework. The Steering group 
met twice and was consulted on the draft submitted herewith. 
Following the opinion of the Impact Assessment board, the following parts of this report were 
modified: 
• regarding the justific ation of the for the proposed Community budget spending, section 
2.1.3 has been amended. Additionally, more details on the overall financial arrangements 
are given in Annex V; 
• the rationale for additional government financia l support is explained in more detail in 
section 2.1.3. User charges are discussed in mo re detail in section 4.2.3. Additionally, the 
description of the baseline in  section 2.2. was strengthened; 
• the temporary nature of the proposal was ma de more explicit in chapter 3 and in the 
assessment of the options in chapter 5. The nature  of the benefits is substantiated in Annex 
V. 
• the assessment of governance issues is covere d in the new section 4.2.2, and chapter 5.4. It 
is made clear in chapter 6 that it is unlik ely that regulation concerning GMES will enter 
into force before 2014.  
                                                 
1 Commission Regulation 2342/2002 of 23 Decembe r 2002 laying down detailed rules for the 
implementation of Council Regulation 1605/2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities, OJ L 357 of 31.12.2002, p. 1., as last amended by Commission 
Regulation 478/2007 of 23 April 2007, OJ L 111 of 28.4.2007, p. 13. 
2 COM(2008)748 final of 12 November 2008. 
 
EN 3   EN 1.2. Stakeholders consultation 
This Impact Assessment is based on a consultatio n of external stakeholders that was launched 
with the Communication entitled "G MES, from concept to reality"3, and on a number of 
external studies (see Annex I).  
Furthermore, since its creation in 2006, the GMES  Bureau is organising a wide consultation 
process with stakeholders, including: 
• thematic workshops with users of the future service; 
• establishment of 'Implementation Groups' co mposed of user representatives. The 
Implementation Groups prepared recommendati ons concerning the scope, architecture and 
implementation plans for each service, including the necessary infrastructural requirements; 
• the consultation of national GM ES coordinators in the fram ework of the GMES Advisory 
Council; 
• regular bilateral meetings between the European Commission's GMES Bureau and 
stakeholders from industry, re gions and other players; and 
• the organisation of conferences dedicated to GMES by successive EU Presidencies. 
1.3. Key issues emerging from the stakeholders consultation 
The stakeholder consultation has clearly demonstr ated that users cannot  rely on research 
projects only. They need access to reliable and accurate data and information that is made 
available in a timely fashion or, for emer gency services, even in rush mode.  
To achieve this goal, it is necessa ry according to stakeholders to: 
• take the necessary steps to expand the prep aratory operational budget line introduced in 
2008 in order to cover initial operations of GMES services; 
• to define the scope of activities to comp lement existing financing and programmatic 
schemes; 
• establish partnerships with the different partne rs in order to ensure  sustainable operational 
services; 
• ensure that, as a user-driven initiative, service sp ecifications correspond to user needs; and 
• facilitate market uptake by th e value-adding service industry  (including SMEs) by ensuring 
an open data and information policy.  
A more detailed overview of the outcome of the stakeholder consu ltation can be found in 
Annex III hereto. 
                                                
 
3 COM(2005)565 final of 10 November 2005. 
 
EN 4   EN 2. WHAT IS THE CHALLENGE ? 
2.1. Overall context and objectives 
2.1.1.  Objectives of the initiative 
GMES is an Earth observation system. Eart h observation allows for the collection of 
information about planet Eart h’s physical, chemical and biol ogical systems, or, more 
generally, the monitoring of the natural environment. It is ba sed both on space based (i.e. 
satellites) and non space based facilities, including airborne , seaborne and ground based 
installations (referred to as "In situ"). Data collected th rough satellites and In situ 
infrastructure are processed to enable the provision of information services, for a better management of our environment and enhanced secu rity of the citizens. This will allow e.g. to 
manage natural resources and biodiversity more efficiently, monitor the state of the oceans 
and the chemical composition of our atmosphere - important factors for climate change – to 
respond to natural and man-made disasters including tsunamis, and to ensure border 
surveillance in a more effective way. 
In the last thirty years, substantial R&D effo rts in the field of Earth observation have been 
made by the EU, the European Space Agency (E SA) and their respective Member States, with 
a view to developing infrastructure and pre-operational Earth observation services. 
Data provided through the currently existing serv ices, however, either do not cover all the 
parameters needed by policy makers
4, or are not provided on a con tinuous basis, in particular 
because the lifetime of the service or the unde rlying observation infrastructure is limited due 
to budgetary and/or technical constraints. In other words, many of the existing Earth 
observation services in Europe  are unreliable due to infras tructural gaps and lack of 
guarantees on their availability in the long term. This represents a concern for final users like 
public authorities, but also for downstream service providers, as they are not likely to invest 
significantly in non-mature, risky markets and would be facing additional difficulties in 
raising capital. 
In this context, the overa ll objective of GMES is to 
• enable Earth observation services on a sustainable basis, and tail ored to the needs of users, 
including public policy makers and private ci tizens. The GMES serv ices will allow public 
policy makers in particular to 
– prepare national, European, and international legislati on of environmental matters, 
including climate change; 
– monitor the implementation of this legislation; 
– access comprehensive and accurate information concerning security matters (e.g. 
for border surveillance). 
• ensure the sustainability of the observation in frastructure necessary to provide the GMES 
services. This will be done either through the establishment of partnerships with 
                                                 
4 In particular, information aggregated at European or global level with a sufficient quality is currently 
not available to European policy makers.  
 
EN 5   EN infrastructure owners, or through the develo pment of new infrastructure in the event 
existing infrastructure is not sufficient to pr oduce the data needed for the GMES services; 
• create opportunities for increased  private sector usage of in formation sources, thereby 
facilitating market uptake by value-adding serv ice providers, many of which are small and 
medium enterprises (SME). 
2.1.2.  Financing and timeline 
GMES are currently and will continue to be co -financed at European, intergovernmental and 
national levels, based on partnerships among the different players. This is because, the EU 
will not finance the cost of the development and operations of all the space based5 and the in 
situ installations providing data for the GMES services, as the financing of the total costs for all the necessary infrastructure elements c ould violate the proportionality and subsidiarity 
principles. The EC will rather concentrate on domains where a Community intervention will 
provide a clear added value. 
The EU will both coordinate these partnerships  and manage its own contribution to GMES, 
which consists of development activ ities and an operational phase. 
Regarding development activities, this contributi on currently consists, in particular, of the co-
financing following research activities under FP 7 und FP 6: 
• a co-financing of space infrastructure developments
6 that are carried by the European 
Space Agency (ESA) in order to fill ga ps in existing space infrastructure; 
• in situ research; 
• funding of pre-operational demonstrator services. 
Within FP 6, the EU has spent 100M€ on GMES  projects, whereas ES A invested another 
100M€ in the GMES Service Elements projects. In the space theme of the specific programme 
"cooperation" of FP 7, the EU will make ava ilable approximately 430M€ for GMES service 
projects and procurement of data for these Services between 2007 and 2013. Additionally, 624 M€ from the space theme of FP 7 will be us ed to contribute to th e development of the 
ESA Space component programme, which amounts to  2246 M€ (2008 e.c.) in total (including 
funds contributed by ESA Member States.  
First operational services in the field of emergency management and land monitoring are 
financed under preparatory actions  in addition to some other ope rational 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. The operationa l processing chain would have to be designed 
to meet the demands of data volumes to be  processed for full pan-European or global 
                                                
 
5 Existing space missions that will provide data for GMES include Spot, TerraSAR-X, EUMETSAT 
satellites, CosmoSkymed, DMC Deimos, Ikonos,  GeoEye, Quickbird, and ENVISAT.  
6 ESA is currently developing 5 "Sentinel" missions under its GMES Space Component Programme. 
 
EN 6   EN coverage, as well as a steady-state operation on a 24/7 basis, with shortest response times. The 
funding would mainly be needed for server s, workstations, backup-systems, network 
infrastructure, software, installation of infras tructure, maintenance, integration and testing, 
long-term archiving, help-desk functions and the like. 
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 perman ent basis. It is thus necessary to establish 
appropriate mechanisms for a Community interv ention. This is the main challenge that the 
proposed ic Act is intended to address, and is  further elaborated in section 2.2. The full 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. This will include a more detailed analysis of costs at Member State level. 
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 assessed against the criterion of cost efficiency 
user needs and the EU  policy interests. 
Since 2005, the Commission has thus led a prio ritisation process for GMES through its 2005 
and 2008 Communications. This has been fully supported in Council orientations (in 2005), 
resolutions (in 2007 and 2008) and conclusions (i n 2008). Already in 2005, there was political 
agreement to base the implementation of GMES  on a phased approach and to focus on three 
fast-track services (land monitoring, emerge ncy response and marine services). In 2007 and 
2008 respectively, a R&D phase was launched for atmospheric monitoring as well as security 
and climate change services. For the period 2011  – 2013, this prioritisatio n process has led to 
the selection of activities of the following fields in the framework of GMES Initial 
Operations. 
(a) emergency response services;  
(b) land monitoring services; 
and auxiliary activities including: 
(c) measures supporting the uptak e of services by users; 
(d) data access; 
(e) GMES space component. 
The following specific criteria were used for the selection of activities for GMES Initial 
Operations.  
• sufficient technical maturity; 
• continuity with the Preparatory Action 2008- 2010, and other existing activities outside the 
RTD framework programmes, su ch as Corine land cover; 
• proven potential for the development of downstream services; 
 
EN 7   EN • 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, 
services are provided mainly by pu blic institutions that will be able to continue activities 
(albeit probably at a less am bitious 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. 
These priorities have been disc ussed extensively with in the aftermath of the Lille GMES 
Forum organised by the French presidency, including consultations within the GMES 
Advisory Council. Stakeholders agreed that it will be necessary to complement existing 
research funds in the period 2011 – 2013 in order to launch services on an  operational basis in 
areas where there is a risk of service interru ption. They also acknowledged that the marine 
and atmospheric monitoring activities are on good track. Owing to the institutional or 
scientific nature of the Europ ean actors involved in their implementation, FP7 seems adequate 
enough, at this stage, both in volume and as a legal instrume nt, to allow establishing a 
capacity which is very close to operational cond itions for marine and atmosphere services. 
2.1.3.  Auxiliary activities 
Auxiliary activities, in particular data access, are an indispensable input for the provision of 
operational emergency and land monitoring services . This is because without access to Earth 
observation data, the provision of operational GMES services is impossible, as the services 
consist in an interpretati on and processing of availabl e Earth observation data.  
The GMES Space Component consists of space obs ervation infrastructure addressing service 
data needs with missions observing land, atmospheric and oceanographic parameters, including: 
• existing or planned European space infrastruc ture mainly satellites of ESA, EUMETSAT 
and Member States; and 
• space infrastructure co-financed by the EU and ESA. 
Within the Space Component, different functions need to be covered for all space 
infrastructure types (demonstration missions, in itial and recurrent elem ents of operational 
missions). Currently, following a gap analysis conducted by ESA, ESA and the EC are jointly 
developing space observation infrastructure in the frame of the ESA GMES Space component 
Programme. This programme aims at developing a number of satellite missions known as “the 
Sentinels”. The ESA GSC programme, however , only covers the development of the 
Sentinels, but not their operation following in -orbit validation. As outlined in the 2008 
Communication, the Community Progr amme should contribute to the sustainability of the 
space infrastructure, notably to the in-orbit availability and operations. The space infrastructure relevant for land and emergency services
7 will be operated by ESA, until an 
operator has been selected8.  
                                                 
7 This includes Sentinels 1 and 2, carrying radar and multispectral imaging sensors, and the land part of 
Sentinel 3. 
8 See the 2008 Communication, p 3, 6 and 8.  
 
EN 8   EN Other auxiliary activities (i.e. a support to the uptake of other operationa l services) are only of 
marginal importance in financial terms in the period 2011 – 2013.  
Consequently, the problem definition and the analysis of options will focus on land 
monitoring and emergency services. 
2.2. Problem definition 
The stakeholder consultation has confirmed the environmental and policy need for GMES 
services9. Nevertheless, the market seems to fail in providing the services without public 
intervention. This is mainly due to intrinsic hi gh fixed costs, while at the same time slow and 
gradual returns normally make the investment not sustainable for the private sector, as a very 
long span of time is required to reac h the break-even point of the investment10. Additionally, 
it should be recalled that most of users of  GMES services will be public policy makers. 
Stakeholders widely agree that a public inte rvention in core operational services is a 
prerequisite for wide-ranging ope rational services to emerge. W ithout such intervention, there 
are serious concerns about the extent to whic h operational services useful for policy makers 
and others would become available11. As outlined in section 2.3.1 below, this public 
intervention should take place at EU level.  
A lack of operational services in the fiel d of emergency response and land monitoring 
provided under EU coordination in the period 2011 – 2013 would thus re sult in the following 
problems: 
• there is a risk that once existing research pr ojects end (i.e. in 2011), in the period covered 
by the proposed Regulation, civil protection authorities would ei ther not have access at all 
to the maps referred to under chapter 2.2.1., or would continue to produce them on their 
own in an uncoordinated manner. In the latter  case, civil protection authorities would have 
to rely on data purchased  at very high prices, which is also  one of the major barriers for the 
development of the downstream sector. The produc tion of the maps would take place, if at 
all, at Member State level, which means that  it would be much more difficult to achieve 
economies of scale; 
• users of land monitoring services (e.g. envi ronmental agencies) would face comparable 
problems between 2011 - 2013, including a lack of continuous avai lability of the products 
referred to under 2.2.2., and the lack  of availability of Earth obs ervation data (in particular 
satellite data) at reasonable conditions; 
• the downstream sector, which depends on a c ontinuous input of information produced in 
the framework of GMES services, could not deve lop its full potential without an assurance 
that the GMES services will be available on a continuous basis. There is consequently a 
risk that the lack of operational services  in the period 2011- 2013, which would leave an 
important gap between the end of research activities and fully fledged operations after 
2014, would significantly deteri orate the boost to the industr y’s competitiveness and the 
emergence of commercially viable solutions between 2011 - 2013. This boost could have 
                                                 
9 See e.g. Section 7 of Annex III hereto. 
10 See also the Impact Assessm ent accompanying the Commission Communication on the European 
Space policy, SEC( 2007)505 of 26.4 .2007, p. 10.   
11 See Section 3 of Annex III hereto.  
 
EN 9   EN been expected to result from the Commun ity’s extensive support to the R&D phase of 
GMES. For a more detailed description of the downstream sector, see Annex II; 
• Without a Community intervention in the peri od 2011-2013 with a view to enabling initial 
operational land monitoring and emergency response services, there is a risk that there will 
be un unacceptable interruption between the re search projects providing pre-operational 
services and the services provided in the fr amework of a fully fledged GMES programme 
starting in 2014. Concrete ly, this could mean that indus trial teams disi ntegrate, which 
could make efficient service provision alread y at the beginning of the next financial 
framework difficult or impossible.  
Additional problems common to both emergenc y and land monitoring services before 2014 
include (i) the lack of common catalogue and archiving facilities , and (ii) the lack of the 
harmonisation and interoperability  of data and service results. The first point is problematic 
because e.g. the parameters necessary to unders tand climate change have to be observed over 
a longer time period. If information produced by operational services is not archived properly, 
it might simply be lost and thus  not available for long term st udies. Lack of harmonisation of 
data is a problem because it may lead to the incomparability of information produced in 
different member States. This would mean that  e.g. the production of pan-European maps for 
the purpose of a Europe-wide monitoring would be impossible.  
It is considered that for other GMES serv ices, existing research and development funding 
under FP 7 can sufficiently address the needs be tween 2011 and 2103. It is for this reason that 
GMES initial operations focus on emerge ncy response and land monitoring services12. All 
GMES services could be financed on an operati onal basis from 2014, provided that decisions 
for funding and organisational arrangements after 2013 will have to be determined as part of 
the next multiannual financial framework.  
In the following, problems related to emergency response and land mon itoring services will 
be analysed. 
2.2.1.  Problems specific to operational Emergency response services  
Civil protection authorities, at  European, national, regional a nd local level require access to 
accurate Earth observation data and information services in order to react to emergency 
situations. These include: 
• natural disasters,  caused by the impact of natural phenomena on society and the built 
environment, including earth quakes, volcan ic eruptions, floods, wildfires, tsunamis, 
hurricanes, droughts, food shortages; 
• man made disasters, to include industrial accidents, ch emical spills and nuclear accidents 
(but not war, terrorism and complex political crises); 
• complex (political) emergencies: civil war and unrest or armed conflict with widespread 
impact on civilian populations, often leading to massive displacement of people across 
regions and national borders. In such cas es the humanitarian community comprises 
                                                 
12 See also Chapter 2.1.3 above.  
 
EN 10   EN assistance, relief and protecti on operations on a non-discriminato ry basis to the victims of 
conflict13. 
Products that are needed concrete ly by civil protection authoritie s are (i) emergency maps that 
are produced in rush mode to show the impact of the disaster, (ii) maps covering the whole 
response cycle, including risk  maps and mapping for the rec onstruction phase, and (iii) 
reference maps providing basic cartographic in formation on areas affected by hazards. Civil 
protection authorities will use thes e maps in order to obtain a cl earer picture of the disaster, 
which will help them to improve their capacit y to react appropriately  to the emergency. To 
provide an example, in the case of floods or fo rest fires, emergency maps would allow rescue 
teams to verify which roads are blocked off a nd therefore cannot be used to reach victims. 
 
Image 1: flood map for Myanmar  
In order to improve Europe's capacity to respond to disasters, the EU and ESA launched the 
development of pre-operational GMES servi ces through the ESA GMES Service Element 
programme and the EC 6th Framework Programme for research (FP6)14. Further 
developments are financed through FP7, based on the guidelin es developed by the 
Implementation Group for the ERCS. 
A further step towards operational services was taken through a preparatory action in the field 
of emergency services (the “PA”). The firs t PA was launched in 2008 covering the period 
2008-2010. Its objective is to complement the FP6 and FP7 activities referred to above by 
developing the operational in terfaces and procedures betw een the users and the service 
                                                 
13 GMES Fast Track Emergency Response Core Service, Strategic Implementation Plan, Final Version, 
24/04/2007 ERCS Strategic implementation Plan, available at 
http://www.gmes.info/library/file s/5.%20Implementation%20Groups%20Documents/Emergency%20R
esponse%20Core%20Service%20ERCS/ERCS_Strategic_Implementation_Plan_Final.pdf , p 9.  
14 Namely the projects RISK-EOS and PREVIEW in supp ort of European civil protection authorities, and 
the RESPOND project in the dom ain of humanitarian aid.  
 
EN 11   EN providers. In the frame of this PA, DG ENTR  has published on 7 June 2008 a call for tender 
“Supporting the implementation of an operatio nal Global Monitoring for Environment and 
Security (GMES) service in the field of emergency management”15. 
This PA, however, will expire in 2010, at the late st. This means that without further financing, 
no operational services in the fi eld of emergency response mana gement will be available at 
EU level thereafter. The disc ontinuity of operational services in the period 2011 – 2013 could 
have a serious negative impact on the launch of operational services in the context of a fully 
fledged GMES programme starting in 2014. 
2.2.2.  Problems specific to operational  land monitoring services 
Land monitoring is quite a complex activity sin ce it covers a wide range of resources and 
diversified policies: soils, water, agriculture, forests, energy and utilities, built-up areas, 
recreation, infrastructures and transports. Better , more frequent and up- to-date information on 
land cover and land use becomes more and more important due to growing changes affecting 
the landscape and environment. Land cover/land use information is thus  required to support 
policy implementation and compliance reporting at  both European and national level, and at 
international level16, taking into consideration that at least 80 % of the EU budget is used 
today to support policy domains with a strong territorial imp act (i.e. agriculture policy, 
regional policy, transport policy, forestry and biodiversity, food security and humanitarian 
aid, climate change and emergenc y planning) for which data a nd information on land use and 
land cover changes are indispensable for impl ementation, monitoring and evaluation of 
effectiveness17. 
Land use/ land cover and land cover change data are therefore essential for a large community 
of users, as well as a better access to Eart h observation and refere nce data. Today many 
initiatives, applications a nd projects provide land cover and land use products (at local, 
national, European or global leve l), but they are spread out, a nd not always compatible. Most 
of them are not regularly updated or delivered in a timely manner. 
In the field of land monitoring, the added-valu e of GMES would be to integrate into one 
system various types of products at different sc ales, combining in interoperable and seamless 
way pre-processed images, refere nce data possibly from existin g sources and land use/land 
cover data starting with the following service elements: 
• pan-European land cover products  at fine resolution that sh ow e.g. detailed information on 
forests and soil sealing; 
• very fine resolution maps of cities and other ‘hot spot’ areas (e.g. coastal areas, protected 
areas etc.) 
                                                 
15 The document is available on http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/calls/calls_arc2008.html.  
16 The EC is party to many International Environmental Agreements including the three Rio Conventions 
(UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol; UN Convention to 
Combat Desertification (UNCCD), UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD)), the UN-ECE 
Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution Deposition an d dispersion modelling, and it is supporting the 
UN Forum on Forest, UN Millennium Development Goals and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. 
17 GMES Fast Track Land Monitoring Core Service Strategic Implementation Plan, Final Version, 
24/04/2007, (« LMCS Strategic Implementation Plan »), available at 
http://www.gmes.info/library/files/ 5.%20Implementation%20Groups %20Documents/Land%20Monitor
ing%20Core%20Service%20LMCS/LMCS_Strategic_Implementation_Plan_Final.pdf , p 8.  
 
EN 12   EN • dynamic land monitoring measuring parameters  of importance to understand climate 
change (e.g. vegetation, surface radiation, water, andsnow). 
 
Image 2: Corine 2000 Pan-European Land cover map 
In this context, the EU and ESA launched si gnificant research efforts, including the FP6 
GEOLAND and Boss4GMES, FP7 GEOLAND2 and GSE projects (managed by ESA). 
Additionally, the Commission will launch a preparatory action in the field of land monitoring 
in 2008. Nevertheless a risk  exists that the services delivered in the framework of the research 
projects and the preparatory action mentioned above will never be made available in an 
operational context between 2011 and 2013 without a Community intervention. 
2.3. Does the EU have the right to act? 
The legal basis for the Community's right to act  in this field is Article 157(3) of the EC 
Treaty. 
Article 157(3) provides for the a doption of specific measures in support of actions taken in the 
Member States to ensure that the conditio ns necessary for the competitiveness of the 
Community's industry exist. The objectives of (i) en couraging an environment favourable to 
initiative and to the development of undertak ings throughout the Co mmunity, particularly 
small and medium-sized undertakings, and of ( ii) encouraging an envi ronment favourable to 
initiative and to the developm ent of undertakings throughout the Community are of particular 
importance in this regard. 
 
EN 13   EN 2.3.1.  Subsidiarity 
As Article 157(3) of the EC Treaty does not es tablish an exclusive co mpetence of the EC, the 
proposed action needs to be examined in the ligh t of the principle of su bsidiarity. This means 
that the Community shall take action only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed 
action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed acti on, be better achieved by the Community. 
For the services with a pan-European (or ev en global) coverage, in particular the pan-
European land cover services referred to under Chapter 2.2.2, Member States cannot sufficiently achieve the objectiv es of the proposed action, as the inputs from different 
Member States have to be aggregated at Eu ropean level. The provi sion of other services 
referred to in chapter 2.2.1. and 2.2.2 (e.g. emerge ncy maps or thematic land monitoring maps 
of a more limited geographical scope) can be better achieved by th e Community for two 
reasons. First, a more coherent and centralised management of input data, from space based or 
in situ sensors will allow for economies of scale
18. Secondly, an uncoordinated provision of 
Earth observation services at Me mber State level would lead to  duplications and would render 
the monitoring of the implementation of EC environmental legislation on the basis of 
transparent and objective criteria difficult or even impossible. If information produced at 
Member State level is not comparable, it will not be possible for the Commission to ascertain 
whether environmental legislation has been im plemented correctly in all Member States. 
2.3.2.  Proportionality 
Any action by the Community shall not go beyond wh at is necessary to achieve the objectives 
of the EC Treaty. The action proposed for the initial operations of GMES fulfils this requirement for several reasons. First, the ope rational GMES services in the field of land 
monitoring and emergency response do not replace existing services, but rather complement 
them or ensure their continuity. Secondly, serv ice provision will be centralised at Community 
level only when indispensable. 
3. O
BJECTIVES  
3.1. General objectives  
The general objectives of the proposed Regul ation correspond to the objectives of GMES 
itself, as outlined in chapter 2.1. above. 
3.2. Specific objectives 
For the period 2011 – 2013, the specific objectives of the proposed act are to 
• enable the provision of the services refe rred to in Chapter 2.2.1. above (including 
emergency maps and reference maps) to ci vil protection authorities between 2011 and 
2013, in order to allow them to respond to emer gencies more efficiently and effectively; 
                                                 
18 For this reason, procurement of space data for FP 7 service projects is coordinated centrally by the 
European Space Agency (ESA) on behalf of the Commission und er a grant agreement. See also 
ECORYS (2008), Study on the Competitiveness of  the GMES Downstream Sector, p. 12 - 13. 
 
EN 14   EN • enable the provision of the land monitoring se rvices referred to in Chapter 2.2.2 above (in 
particular pre-processed data, land cover products, high resolution maps of cities and 
thematic maps) to public authorities (includi ng environmental agencies ) in Europe between 
2011 and 2013, so that they ar e better able to perform th eir tasks of policy making, 
implementation and monitoring; 
• contribute to the production and availability of  environmental information to the public, in 
conformity in particular with the principles of the Aarhus convention19, the INSPIRE 
Directive and the Shared Environm ental Information System (SEIS)20; 
• stimulate, by lowering the costs of access to information, the growth of the Earth 
Observation downstream sector in term s of jobs, innovation and international 
competitiveness between 2011 and 2013. 
3.3. Operational objectives  
The operational objectives for the Regulation are: 
• to enable the provision of the following opera tional emergency response services between 
2011 - 2013: 
– European mapping services for emergency response; 
– product integration for emergency response; 
• to enable the provision of the following opera tional land monitoring services between 2011 
- 2013: 
– periodic land cover mapping service; 
– dynamic land monitoring activities including essential climate variables in support 
to climate change monitoring;  
• to provide auxiliary activiti es between 2011 and 2013, including measures supporting the 
uptake of operational services by users, data procurement in support of services and GMES 
space component operations21. 
3.4. Consistency with other EU policies 
The Commission will ensure complementarity  and consistency with other Community 
policies, in particular in relation to co mpetition, the European GNSS programmes, the 
                                                 
19 The Convention on Access to Info rmation, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to 
Justice In Environmental Matters, of  25 June 1998, provides for th e right of everyone to receive 
environmental information that is held by public authorities ("access to  environmental information"), to 
participate in environmental decisi on-making, and the right to review  procedures to challenge public 
decisions that have been made without respecting the two aforementioned rights or environmental law 
in general ("access to justice"). 
20 See also Chapter 3.4 below. 
21 This concerns in particular the Sentinels, i.e. fi ve space missions developed in  the framework of an ESA 
optional programme that is co-financed by the EU. For more information, see 
http://www.esa.int/esaLP/SEM ZHM0DU8E_LPgmes_0.html. 
 
EN 15   EN protection of personal da ta, the cohesion policy22 and agricultural policy23. Additionally, 
GMES should be a tool for coope ration actions linked to devel opment, humanitarian aid and 
emergency situations worldwide, an d more specifically with Africa. 
Further, the GMES services are considered esse ntial not only because their more direct users 
are policy makers, but also owing to the fact that th ey stimulate innovatio n and growth in the 
downstream sector. GMES is thus fully  in line with the Lisbon strategy.  
The Commission will ensure that the proposed ac tion is consistent with and complementary to 
EU policies relating to research, developm ent and innovation. Any potential Community 
contribution to operational GMES services resulting from this Regulation could not be financed through FP 7, but would be  necessary in order to build on and fully take advantage 
of the substantial R&D support that  has been provided to date. 
Consistency with specific existing policies direc tly related to GMES is analysed in more 
detail for the two services in Annex IV. 
4. P
OLICY OPTIONS  
4.1. Definition of the options 
The policy options at hand to a ddress the objectives as defined in Chapter 3 above are as 
follows: 
• Baseline 
• Option 1: Open method of coordination only 
• Option 2: Regulatory intervention 
• Option 3: Community financing 
The content of these options is de scribed in the following sections. 
4.1.1.  Baseline 
Under the baseline scenario, the EU would not  take any specific measures, in addition to 
existing research activities, in order to ensure the provision of operational services in the field 
of land monitoring and emergency services following the research activities and the 
preparatory action referred to in chapter 2.1. above. 
                                                 
22 The Community Strategic guidelines on Cohesion 2007 and 2013 underline the need to strengthen the 
links between environmental protection and growth and make specific reference to GMES in section 
1.1.2. 
23 In particular, the Commission will ensure cohere nce with the project AGRI4CAST, which provides 
crop yield forecasts, the Land use/cover area fram e survey (LUCAS) project; and the Urban Atlas 
project.  
 
EN 16   EN 4.1.2.  Option 1: Open method of coordination only 
Under Option 1, the Community would not support the provision of operational land 
monitoring and emergency service financially, but rather follow the "open method of co-
ordination", as described in the White Paper on European governance24. According to this 
White Paper, the open method of co-ordination "is a way of encouraging co-operation, the exchange of best practice and agreeing commo n targets and guidelines for Member States, 
sometimes backed up by national action plans as in the case of employment and social 
exclusion. It relies on regular monitoring of pr ogress to meet those targets, allowing Member 
States to compare their efforts and l earn from the experience of others"
25. In order to ensure 
overall accountability, 
• the open method of co-ordination should be used to achieve defined Treaty objectives; 
• the Commission should be closely invol ved and play a co-ordinating role; 
• the data and information genera ted should be widely available26. 
In the field of operational GMES land monito ring and emergency services, the open method 
of coordination would mean that the EU w ould merely coordinate existing national and 
intergovernmental activities. C oncretely, the EU would create fora for discussion between 
(mainly institutional users) in the Member St ates, elaborate guidelin es, e.g. concerning a 
common methodologies for serv ice provision or quality assurance, and determine 
benchmarks. The EU would not manage auxiliar y activities such as data procurement, but 
would rather try to facilitate access to data by national institutions, e.g. through the 
elaboration of model licen se agreements and the or ganisation of workshops. 
4.1.3.  Option 2: Regulatory intervention 
Under option 2, the provision of  the services refe rred to in Chapter 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 would be 
imposed by regulatory means, e.g. by Regulation of the Council and the European Parliament. 
Option 2 would be comparable functionally to legislation that alrea dy exists, including  
• the Directive 2004/52/EC of 29 April 2004 on the interoperability of el ectronic road toll 
systems in the Community27, which imposes the use of spec ific technologies for all new 
electronic toll systems brought into service in the Community on or after 1 January 2007;  
• EU legislative acts concerning environmenta l monitoring, e.g. the Commission Decision of 
29 January 2004 establishing guidelines for th e monitoring and reporting of greenhouse 
gas emissions pursuant to Directive 2003/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the 
Council28. 
These examples demonstrate th at a regulatory  intervention is not a merely hypothetical 
option, provided that the conformity of the proposed act or acts with the principles of 
subsidiarity and propor tionality is ensured. 
                                                 
24 COM(2001) 428 final of 25.7. 2001.  
25 See the White Paper on European governance, p 21. 
26 See the White Paper on Eu ropean governance, p 22.  
27 OJ L 200/50 of 7.6.2004.  
28 OJ L 59/1 0f 26.2.2004. 
 
EN 17   EN 4.1.4.  Option 3: Community financing  
Under option 3, the EU would contribute to the financing of the provision of the operational 
emergency and land monitoring services refe rred to in chapter 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 above. In 
practice, in particular two impl ementation schemes are possible: 
• the Commission concludes procurement contracts with the service providers. Within the 
Commission, the corresponding procurement c ontracts could be managed either by a 
dedicated internal structure such as the GMES  Bureau, or by a standard Commission unit. 
In both cases, the service provi ders would make available the operational emergency and 
land monitoring services to users (including Commission services, civil protection 
agencies and environmental agencies in th e Member States, and downstream service 
providers) according to the pr inciple of full and open access, unless security restrictions 
apply. Finally, the Commission would assess the quality of the services provided to users. 
• The Commission awards grant agreements29 to Member States, gr oups of Member States 
or specialised EU agencies who conclude in turn contracts with the actual service 
providers. These grant agreements would be ba sed on the principle that service providers 
make available their products fully and openly, unless security restrictions apply. 
For the purpose of this Impact Assessment, it is assumed that these two schemes would have 
the same effect in terms of cost s and benefits. This assumption is motivated by the fact that in 
both schemes, the Commission would ensure that  the operational services  correspond to user 
needs through the bodies outlined in the 2008 Communication, includi ng a User Forum and 
the GMES Partners Board. 
4.2. Underlying assumptions 
4.2.1.  Complementarity of the options 
The options defined under Chapter 4.1. are not mu tually exclusive. It would be possible to 
combine all three options. For the sake of clarity , however, the impact of these options will be 
analysed separately. It is thus assumed e .g. under Option 1 that no additional regulatory 
measures or financial support at European level ex ist. In this context, the crucial question is 
whether the open method of coordination or a regulatory intervention would be sufficient on 
their own to achieve the objectiv es defined under Chapter 3, w ithout financial support from 
the EC. In practice, it is unlik ely that GMES will be implemented at EU level simply through 
the funding of infrastructure and services, with out coordination of exis ting activities of GMES 
partners.  
4.2.2.  Governance 
Generally speaking, the overall approach for governance of GMES has been described in 
detail in the 2008 Communication, and its Impact A ssessment. It is within this framework that 
GMES Initial Operations will be implemented , as well as in the framework of common 
practices for the management  of Community programmes. 
The activities of Member States, financed by national budgets, an d synergies with the 
Community contribution will be coordinated in the GMES Partners Board. A Programme 
                                                 
29 In theory, funds could also be transferre d on the basis of delegation agreements.  
 
EN 18   EN Committee will assist the Commission in the ma nagement of Community funds. Specialised 
Community agencies, such as the EEA, w ill support the Commission regarding user 
interfaces. ESA will coor dinate the space component. Detailed coordination arrangements 
will be elaborated within these fora.  
According to the draft conclusions from the evaluation study of the GMES Bureau,  it is 
advisable to maintain a specific internal Commi ssion management structur e. It will be up to 
the next Commission to decide what this stru cture will look like when the Regulation is 
adopted (end 2010 at the earliest). 
The analysis of the different options has been  carried out in this context, taking into 
consideration that the overal l governance of GMES is not part of the Basic Act on GMES 
Initial Operations.  
4.2.3.  Full and open access to GMES data and information 
The options referred to under Chapter 4.1. ha ve been defined under the assumption that 
GMES services should be fully and openly acce ssible, as long as EU and Member States 
security interests do not suggest otherwise. The principle of full and open access has been approved by the Commission in  the 2008 Communication and wa s welcomed by the Council 
in its Conclusion of 2 December 2008. 
The reason why GMES data and information s hould be fully and openly accessible is that full 
and open access will help to promote the widest possible us e and sharing of data and 
information. Downstream service providers could use GMES information and data as an input 
to provide and market innovative services, but th is should be seen as an opportunity rather 
than a threat. Studies have identified the cost of data as a major obstacle to the development 
of this market and a barrier to entry. This was also demonstrated also during the review of the 
Directive on the re-use of public se ctor information (the PSI Directive)
30. 
Generally speaking, the GMES Data and Inform ation policy falls under the framework for the 
dissemination of environmental and geos patial information (SEIS and INSPIRE)31 rather than 
the Community framework for infrastructure pricing. Further, it is recalled that the 
Community has endorsed the principle of full an d open access to Earth observation data when 
it adopted the Resolution of the Third Eart h Observation Summit on 16 February 2005. This 
Resolution includes a reference to the 10-Year  Implementation Plan of Earth Observation 
System of Systems (GEOSS), which contains the principle of full and open access. 
Additionally, it shou ld be noted that beneficiaries of  Community funding would be mostly 
public authorities. This is w hy, at least in an in itial period, it seems advisable to make 
available data fully and openly, especially c onsidering the current small size of the sector . A 
full and open data policy also means that at leas t in the short and medium run, the provision of 
GMES services will not be based on a conce ssion or PPP scheme. As outlined in the 2008 
                                                 
30 Directive 2003/98/EC of the Europ ean Parliament and of the Council of 17 November 2003 on the re-
use of public sector information, OJ L 345/90 of 31.12.2003. Respondents to the public consultation in 
the framework of the review (available 
athttp://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/docs/pdfs/online_consultation/report_psi_online_consultaion_stakeholders.pdf) have signalled that the high prices charged for PSI may be limiting the 
economic development of particular sectors.  
31 See p 5 of the 2008 Communication.  
 
EN 19   EN Communication, the Commission will continue to explore whether the development of market 
opportunities and cost based user charges coul d eventually allow the reduction of the 
proportion of public investment after 2014.  
Finally, it should be recalled that  the principle of full and open access applies to data and 
information owned or co-owned by the EC. Conditions for the acce ss to and the on-ward 
distribution of other data (e.g. space data from third party infrastructu res) will be negotiated 
with data owners. 
4.2.4.  Developments after 2013 
The assessment of the different options is base d on the assumption that in the next financial 
framework, the full set of GMES services (i.e . land, emergency, marine, atmosphere, security 
and climate change) will be financed or co-fin anced by the GMES programme. As outlined in 
section 2.1.2, the overall financing needs of GM ES after 2013 will be subject to future 
analysis led by the Commission, on the basis of defined cost-sharing principles and a cost 
assessment based on the scope of services. As GMES initial operations aim at preparing fully fledged operations after 2013, a complete lack of  funding for GMES in the next financial 
framework would limit the useful ness also of GMES initial ope rations. Assuming that the EU 
will not cease funding of the second flagship programme of its space policy completely, the 
exact scope of activities wi ll be defined following a m odular approach, taking into 
consideration available funds.  
5. A
NALYSIS OF IMPACTS OF OPTIONS  
5.1. Baseline Scenario 
5.1.1.  Economic impact of Baseline Scenario 
The stakeholder consultation has demonstrated that potential providers of the operational 
services referred to in Chapter 2.2. might leave the market due to the absence of perspective 
of EU financing outside research budgets in  the period 2011 - 2013. Service providers would 
probably still continue seeking research co-fin ancing and therefore co-investing in GMES for 
a short time, but without a clear perspective co ncerning operational activ ities the risk exists 
that in particular smaller providers would not survive if the Community intervention is postponed until 2014 and beyond
32. Additionally, providers of downstream services (i.e. 
providers that use the GMES services financed or co-financed by the EU as an input for their 
own services) might not be able to offer innovativ e services owing to th e lack of affordable 
upstream services. This would mean that the mu ltiplicator effect of the EU investment in 
operational services would be lo st. Consequently, the EU Earth observation might lose out to 
non-European companies, in particular those active in countries with a proactive Earth 
observation strategy. In this contex t, it should be recalled that the downstream sector is still 
dependent to a large exte nt on public investments33. 
                                                 
32 Regarding the importance of public intervention, see also ECORYS (2008), Study on the 
Competitiveness of the GMES Downstream Sector, p. 82. 
33 As outlined in the Vega study entitled “The state of the health of the European and Canadian EO 
industry in 2006“. 
 
EN 20   EN The value of the benefits arising from a fu lly fledged operational GMES programme through 
2030 was estimated by PWC at 34.7 € billions, comparable to 0,2 % of the EU GDP at 2005 prices.
34. Although initial operational ac tivities (2011-2013) are limite d in scope, a small, but 
not insignificant growth potential for the EU GDP would be lost (in addition to the 
multiplicator effect referred to in the previous  paragraph) if no operational GMES services 
were financed at EU level. 
As outlined in the 2008 Communication, public i nvestment in GMES would also encourage 
industry to explore innovative ways of integrating observing, communication and information 
technologies. A lack of EU i nvestment would thus mean th at Europe's potential for the 
introduction and dissemination of new producti on methods, technologies  and products in the 
field of Earth observation would not be tapped fully in the beginning of the next decade. As 
the downstream sector is composed predominantly of SMEs35, which are still strongly 
dependent on public grants due to the scarce leve l of maturity of the market, the lack of EU 
action would be particularly detrimental, taking into consideration that SMEs are at the heart 
of the Lisbon Growth and Jobs Strategy36.  
Additionally, the baseline would indirectly ha ve a negative impact on the budgets of public 
authorities at European, national,  regional and local level in co mparison with other options for 
the period covered by the proposed  Regulation. Either the base line would mean that these 
authorities do not have access to the products referred to in chapters 2.2.1. and 2.2.2. above at 
all, or that national authorities develop thei r own systems In the former case, it can be 
expected that the response to emergencies woul d be less efficient. This would lead to huge 
economic costs, as the damages including loss of human lives would be unnecessarily high37. 
In the field of land monitoring, the lack of thematic maps or  land cover products could mean 
that environmental legislation is implemented in a suboptimal way because public authorities might not have access to information of a suffic ient quality. Even wher e national authorities 
produce their own maps, the baseline would lead to higher overall costs, mainly owing to the 
lack of economies of scale regarding the access to  the space or in situ data needed to produce 
the maps. Further, a purely national approach co uld lead to fragmentation and duplication of 
efforts in Europe.  
Finally, the baseline would have a negative impact in the field of international relations. First, 
already in the Communication "GMES - From concept to reality"
38, it was underlined that 
GMES would be the major contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems 
(GEOSS)39. If the EU did not move forward with  operational GMES services before 2014, 
this would limit its credibility  within the Group on Earth Obse rvation (GEO). The same is 
true for the "GMES and Africa" partnership. In  the field of Earth observation, the EU will 
only be a credible partner for developing countries if GMES de livers operational services in 
addition to existing research projects. 
                                                 
34 See the study carried out by PriceWaterhouseCoope rs entitled "Socioeconomic benefits analysis of 
GMES, available at http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/GMES/261006_GMES_D10_final.pdf , p 180 .  
35 See ECORYS (2008), Study on the Competitiveness of the GMES Downstream Sector, p. 88. 
36 See p 1 of the Communication Think Small First” - A “Small Business Act” for Europe, COM(2008) 
394 final of 19.6.2008. 
37 Average annual flood damage (calculated for the period 1980 – 2005) was around 2.2 billion € in 2005 
prices, for wildfire, the figure was around 141 M€. It is obvious that even a small reduction of these numbers would be very beneficial. See also chapter 5.4.2 
38 COM(2005)565 final of 10 November 2005. 
39 See also p 5 of the 2008 Communication. 
 
EN 21   EN 5.1.2.  Environmental impact of Baseline 
Although authorities at Eu ropean, national, regional and loca l level (including environmental 
agencies) to some extent already use pre-operational or operational Earth observation services, two cross-cutting issues remain. Fi rst, existing pan-European services (e.g. the 
Corine Land Cover service) do not meet a ll the requirements of users. Secondly, the 
sustainability of existing services is not ensured,  in particular in the case of services provided 
in the framework of research projects. This m eans that public authorities might not be willing 
to integrate these services into their standard operational procedures, as  the relevant research 
projects have a limited duration and a gap of se veral years between the end of research projets 
and the potential launch of a fu lly fledged GMES programme in 2014. It is thus widely 
acknowledged among stakeholders and potential end users that a more comprehensive and 
harmonised approach would be preferable. 
Regarding emergency response, the baseline would mean (i) that the prevention of risks 
relating to natural disasters (including forest fires and floods) would be made more difficult 
owing to the lack of precise risk mapping serv ices, and that (ii) the response to natural 
disasters could be les efficient.  This could result in emergencie s of a larger scale before 2014. 
The baseline would not allow to meet the main  objective of GMES in the period covered by 
the proposed Regulation, namely to provide operational Earth obs ervation servi ces in support 
of environmental polic ies of the EU and its Member States. 
5.1.3.  Social impacts of Baseline 
The social impact of the baseline is closely lin ked to its economic impact. Without operational 
GMES services, players in the downstream sector  might either leave the market or reduce 
their activities in the field of Earth observati on. A recent study suggests that the development 
of downstream services requires to reduce the current uncertainty over the conditions of 
access, price and data policy for GMES data a nd the real content of core services output, 
which has to date represented an im portant constraint to investments
40. A gap of several years 
between the end of research projets and the potential launch of a fully fledged GMES 
programme in 2014 could potentially  lead to the loss of invalu able know-how in Europe and 
of important opportunities for the crea tion of jobs in a high tech sector. 
5.2. Open method of coordination only – Option 1 
5.2.1.  Economic impact of Option 1 
Option 1 would be instrumental for a better co ordination of existing op erational activities in 
the field of land monitoring and emergency re sponse. This could lead to non-negligible 
benefits compared with the baseline scenario for the following reasons: 
• the open method of co-ordination could reduce  the duplication of services covering the 
same parameters for the same geographical area; 
• improvements in timing and quality of deliver ed information could be achieved through 
the exchange of best practices and benchmarking. 
                                                 
40 See ECORYS (2008), Study on the Competitiveness of the GMES Downstream Sector, p. 13. 
 
EN 22   EN In the Inspire Extended Impact Assessment41 a better harmonisation of data exchange can lead 
to significant benefits, 30% of which are related to better deliv ery of data. In the following, 
the impact and cost-effectiveness of Option 1 is  analysed for a best case and worst case 
scenario. The best case scenario corresponds  to the maximum level of  effectiveness which can 
be attained by the option, i.e. the maximum exte nt to which the specific objectives referred to 
insection 3.2 are met, whereas in a worst case scenario, they are not met at all. As the 
assessment carried out below demonstrates that ev en the best case scenar io is characterised by 
some cost inefficiencies and limited effectiven ess, it appears that no intermediate scenarios 
need to be analysed. Consequently, a more comprehensive sensitivit y analysis assessing 
intermediate effectiveness scenarios both in respect to their outcome (in terms of cost-effectiveness) and their probability is not of key importance. 
In the best case scenario, the open method of coordination would enable the provision of 
almost all the emergency and land monitoring services referred to in section 2.2 and would 
thus solve the problems defined in section 3.2 in the period 2011 - 2013. Consequently, the impact and the benefits would be comparable  to those specified for Option 3 in Annex V 
hereto. Regarding costs, it can be assumed that Option 1 would be less co stly for the EU than 
a financial community interven tion, as the EU budget would mainly cover staff costs and 
coordination activities (e.g. organisation of work shops), but not the cost s for data access and 
the processing and dissemination of data. Neverthele ss it is likely that overall costs of service 
provision, including the costs incu rred at Member State level w ould be higher than in Option 
3 for two reasons: 
• given that input data needed for the services would have to be proc ured separately by each 
Member State, no economies of scale coul d be achieved. Further, the buying power of 
Member States would be reduced, given that th ey would all negotiate with data owners on 
their own. Therefore the procurem ent of data needed to provid e the services would be more 
costly; 
• a totally decentralised service provision sche me will necessitate some duplication, which 
will also need to higher costs. 
The best case scenario is unlikely for three reasons. 
• The efficient provision of services of a pan-European nature will be very difficult to 
implement if inputs from Member States (e.g. national land cover maps ) are not aggregated 
at European level. A mere coordination of ef forts is not sufficient to adequately achieve 
this objective. This aggregati on rather necessitates a financial intervention from the EU; 
• stakeholders widely agree
42 that a mere coordination at EU level is not sufficient to 
contribute to capacity building in the countrie s that currently do not have a sufficient 
expertise or infrastructure to ensure the pr ovision of operational Earth observation services 
• finally, a lack of sustainability (in particul ar for budgetary reasons) cannot be remedied by 
simple coordination. 
                                                 
41 See http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repor ts/inspire_extended_impact_assessment.pdf. 
42 See the Impact Assessment accompanying the 2008 Communication, Annex II, section 8.5. 
 
EN 23   EN These shortcomings lead to the conclusion that the worst case scenario is more likely for 
Option 1. This worst case scenario would only be marginally better than the baseline.  
Option 1 in its worst case scenario is unlikely to have a positive impact on the downstream 
sector (i.e. providers that use the GMES services financed or  co-financed by the EU as an 
input for their own services) for the time period covered by th e proposed Regulation. A mere 
coordination of Earth observation services is not sufficient to allow companies (in particular 
SMEs) to justify investments in innovative value added services. This is because the services 
referred to in Chapter 2.2.1 a nd 2.2.2. are intended to improve  the efficiency of the 
downstream sector by providing  access to basic processed and modelled products more 
cheaply than would be the case if each company had to undertake the basic processing and 
modelling. With regard to the competitiveness in the global market , downstream services 
related to the Land Monitoring Service are curre ntly regarded as those with the “weakest 
positioning and lowest market perspectives”43. Moreover, Land Monitoring downstream 
services are regarded as the segment that wi ll be significantly impacted by the provision of 
operational GMES Services44. Stakeholders generally ag ree that emergency Response 
downstream services are also seen as signifi cantly impacted by the respective GMES Service 
implementation. 
Additionally, providers of downstr eam services might not be able  to offer innov ative services 
owing to the lack of affordable and cheap upstr eam services in the worst case scenario of 
Option 1. In fact, according to different literature sources45, the high cost of input data can be 
regarded as one of the main barriers to th e growth of the EO downstream industry. Other 
concerns on the sustainability  of the downstream market are linked to the heterogeneous and 
fragmented user community, insufficient a nd unreliable access to data for operational 
applications, and the lack of long term co mmitment from large institutional customers46.  
The downstream market is, at present time, a re latively small market, especially as compared 
to the US downstream market which is between two and three times the size of the European 
Industry, and has in average larger  and more profitable companies47. A recent study suggests 
that the development of downstream services re quires to cut-off the current uncertainty over 
the conditions of access, price and data policy fo r GMES data and the real content of core 
services output, which has to date represented an important  constraint to investments48. To 
sum up, it is unlikely that under the worst case scenario of Option 1, GMES would give a 
significant boost to the Earth observation industry in Eu rope before 2013. The cost 
effectiveness of the worst case scen ario of option 1 is thus low. 
5.2.2.  Environmental impact of Option 1 
The analysis of environmental impacts for the period 2011 – 2013 depends on whether a best 
case or worst case scenario is assumed. 
                                                 
43 ECORYS (2008), Study on the Competitivene ss of the GMES Downstream Sector, p. 36. 
44 A mapping of the downstream application segments according to GMES Core Services influence can be 
found in ECORYS, Study on the Competitivene ss of the GMES Downstream Sector, p.27. 
45 ECORYS (2008), Study on the Competitiveness of the GMES Downstream Sector, p. 37. 
46 ECORYS (2008), Study on the Competitiveness of the GMES Downstream Sector, p.38. 
47 ECORYS (2008), Study on the Competitiveness of  the GMES Downstream Sector, p. 11 - 12. 
48 ECORYS (2008), Study on the Competitivene ss of the GMES Downstream Sector, p. 12. 
 
EN 24   EN In the best case scenario, the open method of co-ordination w ould allow for efficiency gains 
regarding existing services. Neve rtheless, authorities at Member  State level would have to 
manage their own mapping services on the ba sis of expensive Earth observation data (in 
particular satellite data) procured separa tely by each authority or member State. 
In the worst case scenario, option 1 but would not be sufficient (i ) to ensure the provision of 
new services, or (ii) the sustainability of existing services. In the field of land monitoring services this means that public authorities wo uld (i) either not have  access to land cover 
products at all, or (ii) would not have produc ts of a sufficient quality at their disposal. 
Regarding emergency response, this option would mean that some civil protection authorities 
would not have access to mapping services at al l, which would make the response to natural 
disasters (including forest fires and floods) much  more difficult. In a worst case scenario, the 
environmental impact of option 1 would corresp ond to the baseline. As states above, a worst 
case scenario is likel y to materialise. 
5.2.3.  Social impact of Option 1 
As Option 1 entails the risk that the sustainabil ity of operational services is not ensured in the 
likely event the worst case scenario occurs, co mpanies in he downstrea m sector might not be 
willing to invest. This would also mean that  job creation remains suboptimal for the period 
2011 – 2013. Although nominal revenues of the downs tream sector have increased by around 
2% per annum on average between 2002 and 2 006, while employment evolved in a lower 
pace, slight under 1%
49. It is questionable whether Option 1 would substantially improve this 
trend. Consequently, the full long-term business potential of GMES and related job-creation 
mentioned in section 5.1 would not be achieved under option 1. 
5.3. Regulatory intervention – Option 2 
5.3.1.  Economic impact of Option 2 
The political and economic impact of option 2 depends on the way a regulatory measure is 
implemented in the Member States. If a Regul ation imposing the provis ion of the services 
referred to in Chapter 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 is implemented fully in all the Member  States (best case 
scenario for Option 2), the specific objectives  defined in Chapter 3.2. would most likely be 
achieved for the period 2011 - 2013. This would lead  to gross benefits comparable to those 
specified in Chapter 5.4./Annex V. It can be assumed, however, that a provision of operational GMES services at Memb er State level would be costly , in particular if the access 
to Earth observation data is not centralised at EU level
50. As in Option 1, Member States 
would have to procure the data and to ensure the provision of the serv ices in a fragmented 
way, which would lead to inefficiencies related to the conditions at which the required data 
and services are procured. The implications of  this fragmented buying power would be of the 
same type of those analysed in the case of Option 1. 
Given the technical complexity of the services in question, it is how ever likely that some 
Member States would not be in a position to  implement fully a regulatory measure imposing 
the provision of the services referred to  in Chapter 2.1.1 and 2.1.2. Without financial 
assistance with the objective of  capacity building in Member Stat es with less know how, it is 
thus possible that operational emergency and land  monitoring services would not be available 
                                                 
49 ECORYS (2008), Study on the Competitiveness of the GMES Downstream Sector, p.23. 
50 Regarding data access, the situation would thus be comparable to Option 1, see chapter 5.2.1. 
 
EN 25   EN at all, or with an insufficient quality. In a wo rst case scenario, a regulatory intervention could 
produce effects only in the countri es that have started developing their own services in any 
event. 
The best case scenario described in the first para graph of this subchapter is rather unrealistic 
for reasons largely comparable to those us ed assessing the likely outcome of Option 1: 
• Assuming that GMES services will be made  available fully and openly to users, the 
aggregation of inputs from Member States with  a view to providing pa n-European services 
necessitates funds used to outsource processi ng and distribution activities at Community 
level; 
• regulation alone could be insuffici ent if national, regi onal and local author ities do not have 
the expertise to implement services; 
• regulatory measures are not enough if Member St ates do not dispose of sufficient funds to 
finance data access and service provision. 
The political and economic impact of the worst cas e scenario of Option 2 is to a large extent 
comparable to the political and economic impact of Option 1. In other words, a boost to the 
downstream sector is not realistic for th e period 2011 - 2013. Additionally, Option 2 might 
reinforce geographical disparities of the downs tream sector. Currently, the main operational 
centres of EO activity in 2006 are the UK and Germany. Additionally, France, Italy, Belgium and Spain also have a relatively strong downstr eam industry. These countries also account for 
the largest concentrations in employment, wh ich is obviously relate d to the number of 
organisations established in a country. Almost all EO downstream organisations are located in 
the EU15, plus Norway and Switzerland. Regardi ng the new Member Stat es, only the Czech 
Republic accommodates a few EO downstream organisations
51. The risk exists that a 
regulatory intervention at EU le vel that is not accompanied by supporting measures would not 
strengthen the Earth observati on industry in countries that do not yet dispose of a strong 
industrial base in the sector, which would require financial assistance. 
5.3.2.  Environmental impact of Option 2 
The environmental impact of Option 2 depe nds on the level of implementation of any 
regulatory measure. As mentioned above, the best  case scenario of full implementation in all 
Member States is unlikely owing to the lack of know how in particular in the new Member 
States. In a worst case scenario, the environm ental impact would correspond to the baseline. 
The uncertainty associated with the environmen tal outcome is a key concern also for option 2. 
5.3.3.  Social impact of Option 2 
Taking into consideration the links between soci al and environmental impact, Option 2 entails 
the risk that in the worst case scenario, job creation in the Ea rth observation sector would only 
take placed in the countries that have de veloped national services without Community 
intervention, whereas in may countries (in pa rticular the new Member  States) a regulatory 
intervention would not contribu te to an increase of employment in the Earth observation 
                                                 
51 ECORYS (2008), Study on the Competitiveness of the GMES Downstream Sector, p. 23.  
 
EN 26   EN sector. Consequently, the full long-term busine ss potential of GMES and related job-creation 
mentioned in section 5.1 might not be achieved under option 2 either. 
5.4. Community financing - Option 3  
5.4.1.  Economic impact 
The financial intervention of the EU under Option 3 would m ean that the provision of 
operational emergency and land monitoring serv ices would be supported by a EU financial 
contribution. This financial Community intervention could mean that the objectives referred to in section 3.2 above are fully met (best case scen ario), partly met, or not met at all (worst 
case scenario). It can reasonable be expected that the financial Community intervention will 
meet the objectives defined for the propos ed Regulation for the following reasons: 
• the Commission, which will be responsible for the overall management of GMES on 
behalf of the Community, has acquired a robust  expertise in the management of initiatives 
comparable to GMES, including Corine land cover, and research activities relating to 
GMES; 
• the technical management of GMES Initial Opera tions will be delegated to entities with a 
proven expertise, including ESA for the GMES space component, and the EEA for in situ 
infrastructure coordination; 
• the financial Community inte rvention in the pe riod 2011 -2013 will concentrate on 
domains where a Community intervention will provide a clear added value; 
• the areas where the Community co-finances ac tivities will be closely coordinated with 
GMES partners in the framewor k of the GMES Partners Board
52 in order to ensure that 
overall results are line with the objectives of GMES and the GMES data and information 
policy; 
• the exact scope and content of the activities th at will be financed or co-financed will be 
determined in a way that avoids crowding out  of private investment, based (i) on an 
intensive consultation of all relevant player s, including users and downstream service 
providers, and (ii) interac tion with Member States th rough a comitology procedure; 
• the implementation mechanisms of GMES will allow avoiding overcompensation. In 
particular 
– the beneficiaries of the Community cont ribution on services would be mostly 
public sector users. In other words,  through the Community action public 
authorities will be able to improve their own services related to land monitoring 
and emergency response. This benefit will partly include some Community 
financing to stimulate the integration of  GMES in these domains which already 
exist in Member States. The private sector would be an indirect beneficiary of this 
funding mostly as subcontractor of public  authorities. Cont racts with private 
entities will contain provisions ensu ring a rigorous control of costs. 
                                                 
52 See also Chapter 6.2. of the 2008 Communication.  
 
EN 27   EN – regarding data procurement, the long-sta nding experience of ESA and JRC will be 
fundamental in assessing cost estimates. 
– regarding the initial operations of the Sentin els, there will be continuity with the 
current budget implementation approach through ESA, which provides for robust 
scrutiny mechanisms. 
Given that it is unlikely that the financia l Community intervention will not achieve its 
objectives in the period  2011 - 2013, it is ju stified to focus the following assessment on a best 
case scenario of Option 3. 
It is envisaged that the indicative financia l Community intervention could amount to 150 M€ 
for the period 2011 – 2013, including 43 M€ for research activities fr om the space theme of 
FP 7 for research actions accompanying GMES init ial operations. A detailed assessment of (i) 
the activities to be financed a nd the corresponding costs, and (ii)  the benefits of the best case 
scenario of Option 3 can be found in Annex V. The assessmen t of benefits is based on 
conservative assumption. In other words, the quanti tative impact of the best case scenario is 
estimated at the bottom range  of possible benefits.  
According to stakeholders and an external study, it can reasonably be  expected that the 
Community financing would have a positive imp act on the competitiveness of EU firms in 
comparison with non-EU competitors, as the pr ivate sector, including downstream companies 
would have planning certainty concerni ng the availability of GMES services53. This is of 
paramount importance for SMEs, which form th e backbone of the Earth observation industry 
in Europe54. 
Further, the making available of data and info rmation produced by servic es that are supported 
financially by the Community according to the principle of full and open access could most likely lead to innovations in the downstream sector, which depends on a flow of data at 
reasonable conditions
55. This, in turn, would significantly contribute to job creation in a high 
tech sector of strategic impor tance in the period covered by the proposed Regulation. The 
probability of reaching the full potential the GMES programme  mentioned in section 5.1 
would be significantly higher under option 3. 
Another, albeit more indirect, economic impact of  option 3 would be that  the cost associated 
with a number of environmental problems such as flooding, wildfire and urban management 
is likely to be reduced if operational services ar e guaranteed. This aspect is elaborated in more 
detail the next section of this chapter. Anot her indirect economic im pact is that Member 
States and other users would ha ve less need to develop thei r own solutions, implying cost 
savings and avoidance of duplicatio ns. These aspects are discussed in greater detail in section 
5.1.1. The overall cost benefit assessment of option 3 will have to take these indirect economic impacts into proper consideration. 
Finally, it is recalled that EU financing of ope rational services would constitute a political 
message of paramount importance also for th e external relations of the EU, and would 
                                                
 
53 See, in particular, ECORYS (2008), Study on the Competitiveness of the GMES  Downstream Sector, p. 
812. 
54 See ECORYS (2008), Study on the Competitiveness of the GMES Downstream Sector, p. 93. 
55 See ECORYS (2008), Study on the Competitiveness of the GMES Downstream Sector, p. 13. 
 
EN 28   EN reinforce the credibility of the EU as a part ner in the GEOSS and the strategic EU-Africa 
partnership. 
5.4.2.  Environmental impact 
Regarding emergency services , Option 3 would allow civil pr otection authorities throughout 
Europe in particular to have access to accu rate emergency response maps including maps 
produced in rush mode already in 2011. These maps would beter enable civil protection 
authorities to preven t and respond to crises throughout the whole response cycle, both 
allowing better assessment and management of  risk in the preven tion phase, and better 
management of the response duri ng the crisis and in the post-cr isis phase. This could reduce 
the scale of environmental risk, in cluding floods and forest fires. 
An external study has demonstrated that floods have caused average annual damages 
(calculated for the period 1980 – 2005) of around 2.2 billion € in 2005 prices, owing to loss of 
life, effects of flood morbid ity and damage to property56. GMES can help to reduce these 
damages on the assumption that precise flood maps could enable a much more efficient 
response by civil protection authorities. Stak eholders suggested th at GMES could reduce 
damage, by improving the efficiency in mana ging and responding to crises, from the pre-
event phase to the post-event phases, and noted th at in the context of ex treme events, inputs to 
planning and risk management, this assumption is  regarded as conservative by the consultant 
that carried out the assessment (PWC). This would correspond to net economic benefits of 
around €135 million in 2012, based on conservative assumptions57. 
Average annual wildfire damage (calculate d for the period 1980 – 2005) was around 141 
million € in 2005 prices58. GMES services could provide ci vil protection authorities with 
inputs for all stages of action in relation to wild fires, including a fast appraisal of the fire 
situation which in turn allows authorities to  optimise the fire fighting facilities at their 
disposal. Stakeholders consulted thought th at GMES could deliver a 1% reduction in 
mortality, morbidity and property damage. This would correspond to net economic benefits 
of around 9 million € in 201259, based on conservative assumptions. 
A Community financing would enable the provision of the land cover  products referred to in 
Chapter 2.2.2 on a reliable basis. These products, mostly of a generic, multipurpose nature, would make possible the developm ent of tailored downstream services in a large number of 
areas, including soils, water, agriculture, fo rests, energy and uti lities, built-up areas, 
recreation, infrastructures and tr ansports. In the following, the be nefits of selected products 
that would be based on the generic land cove r products above are discussed, including (i) 
agriculture and rural de velopment, (ii) urban and regional policies, and (iii) ecosystems and 
biodiversity – forest monitoring. 
In the field of agriculture and rural development , GMES would potentially support the 
CAP information requirements between 2011 and 2013, through the providing of land use and 
land cover data at more frequent intervals, at  higher spatial resolution, and with continuity 
over time. Other applications of GMES, includ ing for example, irri gation pressure mapping 
                                                
 
56 For more details see PWC, Socio- economic analysis of GMES benefits, p 138 – 139, and Annex V.  
57 See PWC, Socio-economic analysis of GMES benefits, p 146 – 147. 
58 See PWC, Socio-economic analysis of GMES benefits, p 140 – 141, and Annex V. 
59 See PWC, Socio-economic analysis of GMES benefits, p 148 – 149. 
 
EN 29   EN and soil sealing mapping also offer the potent ial for landowners to en hance yields through 
better predictive tools to manage scarce resources such as water60. 
Regarding Urban Management , GMES could enable local au thorities and other users to 
understand the impacts of land use policy bette r, anticipate trends, develop policies to 
minimise urban sprawl/soil sealing and enable them to manage the urban environment, and 
the urban-rural interface in a more effective way61. The main monetary benefits  identified in 
an external cost benefit analys is derive from efficiency ga ins within city and regional 
administrations and an improved means of impact  assessment at EU institutions level, notably 
the evaluation of the implementation of the EC  Structural Funds. For the period 2011 – 2013, 
the study foresees total be nefits of around EUR 168 million,  including estimated benefits 
of EUR 56 million in 201262. 
In the field of  biodiversity and ecosystem services, including forest monitoring, the 
products referred to in chapte r 2.2.2 could be used to pr ovide services improving the 
management of forests grown for logging;  increase regeneration through monitoring 
disturbances and re-growth; a nd provide information on forest indicators and land cover to 
improve policy making. The benefits of GM ES can be calculated through avoided 
deforestation (attributable to GMES) on the ba sis that GMES could reduce deforestation by 
5%-10%. Valuing tropical forest at €105/ Ha, the global annual economic costs of 
deforestation is calculated as €1.5 billion (200 5 prices). Net economic benefits would thus 
amount to between €75-150 million per a nnum (in nominal undiscounted terms)63. 
5.4.3.  Social impact 
The above analysis for operational GMES emer gency and land monitoring services does not 
cover the impact on the downstream sector. It is assumed that EU financing would lead to the 
provision of sustainable services  that will be the basis for innovative value added services in 
Europe already between 2011 and 2013. This could reverse the trend of very slow growth in 
employment in this key high tech sector64. Additionally, the availabi lity of operational GMES 
services could be instrumental in reducing the disparities between old and new Member States 
in the field of Earth observation. This is because  downstream services market development, in 
particular in countries with a weaker industrial base, will most likely accelerate only with the 
full and open access to inputs from  operational GMES services. 
                                                 
60 See PWC, Socio-economic analysis of GMES benefits, p 96. 
61 See PWC, Socio-economic analysis of GMES benefits, p 96 – 97. 
62 See the Cost Benefit Analysis for the GMES Ur ban Services, prepared by Indra, available at 
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/GMES/URBAN_C2_Ph2_V2%5B1%5D.0_00_12_04_Final.pdf., p. 42.  
63 See PWC, Socio-economic analysis of GMES benefits, p 107, and Annex V. 
64 See also chapter 5.2.3.  
 
EN 30   EN 6. COMPARING THE OPTIONS  
The following table contains a comparison of the options in the light of the objectives defined 
in chapter 3, and the principle of cost-effectiveness. 
Option Likelihood of reaching objectives 
and corresponding benefits65 Total Costs (including Community budget 
and Member State budgets) Cost 
effectiveness 
1 +66 Community budget: 
•Appropriations -67 
•Human Resources + 
•Administrative exp. + Costs in MS  
 
++++68 +69 
2 + Community budget: 
•Appropriations - 
•Human Resources + 
•Administrative exp. + Costs in MS  
 
++++ + 
3 +++70 Community budget:71 
•Appropriations ++ 
•Human Resources + 
•Administrative exp. + Costs in MS 
 
+++ +++ 
                                                 
65 The likelihood of reaching the objectives has been discussed in section 5.2.1, 5.3.1, and 5.4.1. The 
benefits that are quantified in section 5.4 and Annex V are those which would materialise if the 
objectives defined in section 3.2. are fully met. In the reference year 2012, annual benefits linked 
directly to GMES include 135 M€ for flood services , 9M€ for wildfire services, a minimum of 75 M€ f 
in the field of deforestation and 56 M€ for urban planning, taking into consideration (i) that these 
numbers are based on conservative assumptions, and (ii) do not include benefits e.g. relating to 
emergency response to volcano eruptions and Earth quakes, nor benefits linked to efficiency gains in the field of agriculture and rural developments. 
66 It is considered to be unlikely that options 1 and 2 will allow to r each the specific objectives of GMES 
Initial Operations owing to (i) problems with the prov ision of pan-European services, (ii) the lack of 
capacities and know-how in some of the Member States , and (iii) a lack of sustainability (in particular 
for budgetary reasons). In such a worst case scenar io, Option 1 and 2 would be better than the baseline 
only marginally. 
67 Appropriations include funds spend through grants, procurements or delegation agreements. In Options 
1 and 2, no significant EC budgets would be spent through appropriations  
68 Although no detailed numbers concerning the costs incurred by the Member States are available, 
previous experience in the field of Corine land cover and data submitted by the EEA shows that these 
costs are higher than EC costs by a factor of 3, meaning that total costs could be higher than EC costs 
by a factor of 4. It is assumed that both options 1 and 2 would lead to higher overall cost for the EU and its Member States due to (i) higher costs for the pr ocurement of data needed to provide the services, 
given the lack of economies of scale and counter vailing buying power, and (ii) the necessity to 
duplicate infrastructures in a totally decentralised service provision scheme. 
69 Given the likelihood that Options  1 and 2 will not allow reaching the specific objectives of GMES 
Initial Operations, cost-effectiveness of these options is low.  
70 Section 5.4. explains in detail why for Option 3, it can reasonably be assumed that the objectives 
defined in Section 3.2. are fully met. Consequently , the quantified benefits would fully materialise.  
71 Detailed cost figures for the EC have been included in the legislative financial statement. For option 3, 
in the reference year 2012, total commitment appropriations would amount to 41 M€, 0,4 M€ for 
administrative expenditure, and 2,5 M€ for human resources. In options 1 and 2, the cost of human 
resources would be lower, as no staff members would be needed to manage appropriations.  
 
EN 31   EN The likelihood of reaching the objectives has been discussed in section 5.2.1, 5.3.1, and 5.4.1, 
which contain a discussion of the impact of the different options depending on whether the 
specific objectives of GMES are fully met (bes t case scenario), or not met (worst case 
scenario). The benefits that are quantified in section 5.4 and Annex V are those which would 
materialise if the objectives defined in secti on 3.2. are fully met. In the reference year 2012, 
annual benefits linked directly to GMES incl ude 135 M€ for flood services, 9M€ for wildfire 
services, a minimum of 75 M€ f in the field of  deforestation and 56 M€ for urban planning, 
taking into consideration (i) that these numbe rs are based on conservative assumptions, and 
(ii) do not include benefits e.g. relating to emer gency response to volcano eruptions and earth 
quakes, nor benefits linked to efficiency ga ins in the field of agriculture and rural 
developments. 
It is considered to be unlikely that options 1 and 2 will allow to reach the specific objectives 
of GMES Initial Operations owing to (i) pr oblems with the provision of pan-European 
services, (ii) the lack of cap acities and know-how in some of the Member States, and (iii) a 
lack of sustainability (in pa rticular for budgetary reasons). In such a worst case scenario, 
Option 1 and 2 would be better than the baseline only margina lly. Section 5.4. explains in 
detail why for Option 3, it can reasonably be assumed that the objectives defined in Section 
3.2. will be fully met. 
Regarding costs, it is not sufficient to focu s on EC costs only, which would amount to 150 M€ 
for the whole period covered by GMES Initial Operations (2011 – 2013), including 43 M€ for 
research activities from the space theme of FP 7 for research  actions accompanying GMES 
initial operations. Costs at Member State leve l must also be taken into consideration. 
Although no detailed numbers concerning the costs incurred by the Member States are 
available, previous experience in the field of Corine land cover and data submitted by the EEA shows that these costs could be higher than EC co sts by a factor of 3, meaning that total 
costs could be higher than EC costs by a factor of 4 in option 3. It is assumed that both 
options 1 and 2 would lead to hi gher overall cost for the EU and its Member States due to (i) 
higher costs for the procurement of data needed  to provide the services, given the lack of 
economies of scale and countervailing buying pow er, and (ii) the necessity to duplicate 
infrastructures in a totally decen tralised service provision scheme. 
Option 3 is thus considered to  be the preferred option for th e period 2011 – 2013, as it has 
been demonstrated that this  option would (i) entail a hi gh likelihood that the specific 
objectives of GMES initial operations are met, and (ii) could allow reducing overall costs, 
including through a centralised procurement of data needed for the services. Option 3 would 
also give a boost to the downstream sector, which would have bett er access to data. As 
foreseen in the Communication "GMES - We car e for a Safer Planet", in any event EU 
financing should be accompanied by co-ordination activities. Additionally, the Commission will continue analysing whether a regulatory in tervention (e.g. with a view to establishing 
common methodologies for land cover products) is  necessary. In the period covered by the 
proposed Regulation, it is unlikely that EC regulation sp ecifically targeted at  GMES will enter 
into force. 
 
EN 32   EN 7. MONITORING AND EVALUATION  
7.1. Evaluation 
Evaluation tasks will be carried out in three pha ses (ex ante, interim and ex post). In addition 
to this Impact Assessment, which constitutes an ex ante evaluation in accordance with  Article 
21(1) of the Implementing Rules , the Commission will carry out evaluations of i) the 
preparatory action in the field of emergency ma nagement and land monitoring referred to in 
Chapter 2.1.1 above, and (ii) data access activ ities, in order 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 interim and ex post evaluation w ill focus on the following indicators: 
• achievement of the operational objectives referr ed to in chapter 3.3. In  particular, it will 
have to verified whether (i) service quality is in conformity with applicable technical 
specifications, (ii) whether serv ice specifications co rrespond to user requirements and thus 
ensure the widespread use of the services provided; 
• impact of operational emergency and land monitoring services on the Earth observation 
industry in Europe, in particular in terms of relevance, utility, effectiveness and efficiency 
of services. 
7.2. Monitoring 
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 
for a in order to ascertain th at services are user-driven. 
 
EN 33   EN ANNEX I  
REFERENCE STUDIES AND DOCUMENTS  
PriceWaterhouseCoopers, October 2006, Socio-Economic  Benefits Analysis of GMES, prepared for 
ESA http://www.esa.int/esaLP/SEMJZ10DU8E_LPgmes_0.html
 
Impact Assessment of the European Space Policy, including GMES 
 http://ec.europa.eu/enterpri se/space/off_docs_en.html   
GOSIS study (funded under FP6) on GMES governance models 
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sp ace_research/pdf/gosis.pdf  
SEIS Impact Assessment: Towards a Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) 
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/Lex UriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52008SC0112:EN:HTML  
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/Lex UriServ.do?uri=COM:2008:0046:FIN:EN:PDF  
http://eurlex.europa.eu/Noti ce.do?val=464212:cs&lang=en&list= 464212:cs,&pos=1&page=1&nbl=1
&pgs=10&hwords=&checktex te=checkbox&visu=#texte  
Impact Assessment relating to the Economic and Governance Evolution of Space in Europe, RPA 
February 2007, prepared for EC DG Enterprise & Industry 
 http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/calls/files/08_004/rpa_study.pdf  
European Commission Green Paper, European Space Policy, COM(2003)17 final (21.1.2003) -  
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriSe rv/site/en/com/2003/com2003_0017en01.pdf  
European Commission White Paper Space: a new European frontier for an expanding Union: 
An action plan for implementing the European Space policy, COM(2003)673 (11 November 2003) 
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/space/whitepa per/whitepaper/whitepaper_en.html  
European Commission 'European Space Policy - Preliminary Elements' COM(2005) 208 final (23.May 2005) http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/space/doc_pdf/pep.pdf
 
SPASEC March 2005: Report of the panel of experts on space and security, prepared for EC DG 
Enterprise & Industry 
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/space/news/article_2262.pdf  
ECORYS / ESYS 2006: SATMAC – Satellite Communica tion Market Assessment and Cost Benefit -, 
Market Characterisation Report a nd Satellite Communication Applica tion and Services, prepared for 
EC DG Enterprise & Industry http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sp ace/doc_pdf/impact_assessment_en.pdf
 
BICEPS report - Building an Information Capacity  for Environmental Protection and Security 
(European Commission, DG RTD, 2004) http://www.gmes.info/library/i ndex.php?&direction=0&orde r=&directory=6.%20Cross-
Cutting%20Studies%20Documents  
DPAG report - Data Policy Assessment for GMES (European Commission DG RTD) - 
http://www.gmes.info/library/i ndex.php?&direction=0&orde r=&directory=6.%20Cross-
Cutting%20Studies%20Documents  
INSPIRE Extended Impact Analysis – European Commission, SEC(2004)980 – http://inspire.jrc.it/reports/inspir e_extended_impact_assessment.pdf
 
http://inspire.jrc.it/reports/AANS DI_Italy_Final Approved_v12en.pdf  
Costs for monitoring and reporting 
GINIE (10/2003): Geographic Information in the Wider Europe, DG-INFSO Contract IST-2000-
29493 http://www.ec-gis.org/ginie/doc/ginie_book.pdf
 
 
EN 34   EN PIRA (09/2000): Commercial Exploitation of Eur ope’s Public Sector Information © European 
Communities, 2000 
ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/p ub/econtent/docs/2000_1558_en.pdf  
Craglia M and J. Nowak (2006): “ Assessing the Impacts of Spatial Data Infrastructures - Report of the 
International Workshop on the Cost to Benefit and Return on Investment Ratios of SDIs” . 2006, Ispra, 
Italy http://www.ec-gis.org/sdi/ws/costbenefit2006/ reports/report_sdi_crossbenefit%20.pdf
  
European KNOWLEDGE INTENSIVE Services based on Earth Observation: “Doing business with 
the help of GMES” by S.Galant, T.Pagano, A. Vaféas, TECHNOFI, October 2007 (copy available) 
Geospatial Interoperability Return on Investment Study , National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration (NASA): Geospatial Inte roperability Office, April, 2005. 
http://www.ec-gis.org/sdi/ws/costbenefit2006/reference/ROI_Study.pdf  
OECD Environmental outlook to 2003 
 http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/29/33/40200582.pdf  
OECD(2005): Space 2030 – “Tackling society’s challenges” 
http://www.oecd.org/document/13/0,23 40,en_2649_34815_350 59341_1_1_1_1,00.html  
Space for GeoInformation, The Netherlands (02/2003) 
http://www.ravi.nl/ruimte/index.htm  
MICUS (01/2003): The market for geospatial inform ation: potential for employment, innovation and 
added value, study for the Germen government 
http://www.micus.de/pdf/m icus_study_br oadband.pdf  
P.Weiss (NOAA, 02/2002): Borders in Cyberspace – conflicting public sector information policies and 
their economic impacts (for the EU/US comparison) http://www.weather.gov/sp/Borders_report.pdf
 
Environmental Performance Index 2008, Yale and Columbia, http://epi.yale.edu/Home  
Euroconsult 2007, Assessment of the downstream value-adding sectors of space-based applications 
VEGA and Booz Allen and Hamilton, 2004, The state and health of the European and Canadian EO 
service industry VEGA, 2008, The state and health of the European and Canadian EO service industry in 2006 ECORYS, 2008, Study on the competitiveness of th e GMES Downstream Sector, prepared for DG 
Enterprise and Industry
 
EN 35   EN ANNEX II  
THE  DOWNSTREAM  SECTOR  IN EUROPE 
At downstream level, the relevant GMES sector  can be defined as those organisations that 
offer value added services base d on Earth Observation data, but  also large industrial sectors 
which integrate information derived from Ea rth observation in their service offer or 
production processes, according to  the model of meteorological or geographical information. 
Within the downstream sector, tw o distinctions should be made: 
• Companies that use EO data and derived in formation, the provision and availability of 
which would be affected by the introduction of GMES services, versus those that use other 
EO data; 
• Public entities versus private actors. 
The economic performance of the GMES downstr eam sector has been reported in three 
studies: a study by Euroconsult in 200772, and two studies by VEGA, from 200473 and 
updated in 200874. 
Euroconsult assessed the downstream value-addi ng sectors of space-base d applications. This 
concerned earth observation (E O), communication and navigati on. An overview of the world 
and European revenues and the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is provided in the following table. 
Sector World revenues 
2005 European revenues 
2005 Europe % 2000-2005 CAGR 
Europe 
Telecom €54.3 billion €18.1 billion 33% 6.5% 
Navigation €17.3 billion €2.3 billion 13% 22% 
Earth observation €1.3 billion €0.4 billion 31% 4% 
Total €72.9 billion €20.8 billion 29% 11% 
Table 1: Revenues of the downstream value addi ng sectors of space-based applications for 
2005. Source: Euroconsult (2007). European data include Canada, an associate member of 
ESA, which accounts for around 10%. 
The table indicates that EO is the smallest of the three value adding space segments in 
absolute numbers. European revenues take up around one-third of world revenues. European 
revenues from EO amount to ap proximately 2% of total Eur opean revenues of downstream 
value adding sectors, which is equal the shar e that world EO revenue s have in world value-
adding revenues. 
                                                 
72 Euroconsult, 20 07, Assessment of the downstream value-a dding sectors of space-based applications. 
73 VEGA and Booz Allen and Hamilton, 2004, The state and health of the European and Canadian EO 
service industry 
74 VEGA, 2008, The state and health of the European and Canadian EO service industry in 2006 
 
EN 36   EN The revenue figures above are for EO value ad ding activity undertaken on a contracted basis 
including public sector revenues, which acc ount for around €150 million, mostly coming from 
Meteorology and Met-ocean. European data q uoted above include Canada, an associate 
member of ESA, which accounts for around 10% of the total. The following table provides as 
split of total European revenues per segment, an d additionally provides the growth rate in the 
period 2000-2005. 
Segment Revenue in 2005 CAGR 2000-2005 
Meteorology € 211 million 2% 
Defence and security € 65 million 5% 
Oceanography € 49 million 10% 
Natural Resource Monitoring € 52 million 2% 
Land Monitoring € 13 million 2% 
Total  € 390 million 4% 
Table 2. European revenues EO value adding industry per segment in 2005. Source: 
Euroconsult (2007). European data include C anada, an associate member of ESA, which 
accounts for around 10%. 
Euroconsult also indicated th at EO value adding industry is the only segment where, in 
commercial activity, the downstream sector is smaller than the upstream sector (Satellites, launches, operations and ground equipment). 
The Euroconsult figures as mentioned above ca n be compared with the figures provided by 
VEGA. VEGA reports the total revenue in Eur ope and Canada for EO value adding industry 
at € 285 in 2002, growing 2% per annum on av erage to € 306 million in 2006. This figure 
does not entirely match with the € 390 million in 2005, as presented by Euroconsult. 
However, these revenues includ e public sector revenues fr om meteorology and met-ocean, 
while we understand that this is excluded in th e VEGA study. If we correct  for this, there is a 
‘gap’ of around € 60 million. Part  of this can be explained by the difference in base year 
(2005 for Euroconsult, and 2006 for VEGA), but not all. The difference may arise from 
methodological differences. 
VEGA indicates that about 30% of all revenues  are from National/ESA/EC grants, hence not 
from customers paying for services. This figure rises to 50% for small/medium sized companies. 
VEGA estimates employment in the sector to  have risen from 2,900 employees in 2002 to 
3,000 in 2006.An overview of employment and revenue  is presented in the following table. 
 
EN 37   EN  
 2002 2006 CAGR 
Revenue* € 285 million € 306 million 1.8% 
Employees* 2,900 3,000 0.85% 
Labour productivity (revenue per 
employee) € 98,00075 € 102,000 0.93% 
Table 3. European revenue and employment. Source: VEGA. *Does not include revenue or 
employment generated by the public sector 
The table indicates that reve nues have increased by aro und 2% per annum on average 
between 2002 and 2006, while employment evolve d in a lower pace, slight under 1%. This 
implies that the productiv ity per employee has grown. 
These figures from both Euroconsult and VEGA are for all EO activity, even if the company 
concerned is not in the “space sector”. Hence they include, for example, the EO related 
revenues of large engineering /sur vey companies that use EO as pa rt of their overall business. 
VEGA also estimated that the value adding prod ucts and services provided by the EO value 
adding industry are made up for 80% from a co mbination of spaceborne plus aerial or ground 
borne data. The OECD76 indicates that in the total EO downstream sector (commercial remote 
sensing, including data sales), th e revenues amounted to € 2 bill ion worldwide (satellite plus 
aerial component) in 2003. It was estimated th at the satellite component amounted to one 
third of the total. 
Conclusion  
The GMES direct downstream sector employs around 3,000 persons in 2006. The total 
revenue in Europe amounts to € 250 - 300 million in 2006, excluding revenues by the public 
sector, which amount around € 150 million. These values include revenues from grants; 
corrected for this, revenues from paying customers amount to € 175 -210 million, excluding 
revenues by the public sector. 
According to VEGA, there are 151 companies in Europe and Canada which can be defined as 
value adding companies (2006), excluding th e public sector. In 2002 there were 162 
companies identified. The decrease can be expl ained by consolidation activities that have 
taken place. 
The sector is primarily made up of small an d medium sized companies. The distribution 
among categories is presented in the following table. 
                                                 
75 VEGA reports revenue per employee being € 107,000, which is based on a correction for outliers in the 
survey sample. However, these outliers were not ex cluded when calculating total revenue, which does 
not seem methodologically sound. Therefore this tabl e presents the ‘raw’ figu res without correction for 
outliers. 
76 Space 2030, Tackling society’ s challenges, OECD, 2005 
 
EN 38   EN  
Size class Number of companies 
Small (0-10 employees) 87 
Medium (11-60 employees) 68 
Large (>60 employees) 6 
Total 151 
Table 4. Size distribution of value addi ng companies (Europe and Canada). Source: VEGA 
On average, the sector employs 20 persons pe r company and generates a turnover of around € 
2 million per company. VEGA notes th at profitability is highly c oncentrated with 89% of the 
profits coming from just 5 companies. VEGA i ndicates that the main operational centres of 
EO activity are in the UK a nd Germany, with France, Ital y and Spain also making a 
significant contribution. 
Conclusion  
The GMES downstream sector is a relati vely small sector, composed of around 150 
companies. More than half of these compan ies are small companies employing less than 10 
persons. The average turnover amounts to € 2 million per company. Note that the public 
sector is not include d in these figures. 
The use of GMES information in large industria l sectors such as energy, agriculture, water 
resources, etc should be comparable to those of similar information such as meteorology or 
cartography and remains to be assessed. 
VEGA indicates that about 30% of all revenues  of the EO value adding sector is from 
National/ESA/EC grants, hence not from custom ers paying for services. This figure rises to 
50% for small/medium sized companies. 
The European EO value adding sector takes up around one-third of global revenues. Both the 
below revenue and non weighted revenue tables give a picture of the geographical market 
reach of companies. The graph indicates that the majority of the users or customers of 
European value adding companies are located in the country of the company itself. The 
revenue weighted analysis shows that where ther e are activities outside Europe, the market is 
dominated by the activities of large compan ies operating in Asia and North America 
according to VEGA. 
 
EN 39   EN 
 
  
Figure : User locations for EO companies. Source: VEGA 
Overall, nearly 10% of all European products  are also sold to global users (VEGA 2008). 
Historical comparisons of grow t h  i n  E O  S e r v i c e s  b y  c u s t o m er location shows that in the 
period 2003 – 2006 there was a growth in products sold globally. 
In terms of profitability trend of  the EO service industry as a w hole, profitability  is typically 
below 10% and concentrated in a few larger co mpanies, with only 89% of profit value across 
the sample companies from the VEGA su rvey (VEGA 2008) being delivered by five 
organisations. In 2006, a significant profit (greater than 1 million Eu ros) is limited to just five 
companies in the research sample77, including all the large res pondents and just one medium 
sized organisation. 
Whilst it is not directly related to profitability, the current ratio78 of the industry has been 
analysed in the litera ture. Whilst the trend is upwards in  the EO value adding industry, many 
companies remain below the ‘safe’ level of 1 (for the current ratio) an d the industry remains 
below benchmarks. For example, current ratios for engineering companies in the EU are 1.5 
and in the US 1.1, while the EO indust ry as a whole is 0.89 (Galant 2007). 
Despite issues with funding relating to  support from the public institutions79, the EO sector 
shows above average investment in R&D compared  with other sectors, with the average R&D 
expenditure accounting for 27.5% of EO revenue. It is important to note that technical 
                                                 
77 Source: VEGA (2008). It should be noted that prof itability of EO companies is shown by this study to 
be typically presented in low single figures as percentage of revenue, variable between companies and 
volatile year on year. 
78 An indication of a company's ability to meet short-term debt obligations; the higher the ratio, the more 
liquid the company is. Current ratio is equal to  current assets divided by current liabilities. 
79 Issues being that revenues are primarily generate d from operational services but revenues grants still 
comprise about a quarter of company revenues on average (VEGA 2008). Organisations awarding 
grants to the EO sector included National public grants, European public grants - ESA EC & other 
(VEGA 2008) 
 
EN 40   EN development activities in the EO sector are fu nded by clients / public funds and not direct by 
internal investment (VEGA 2008). 
GMES aims at the delivery of information serv ices. At global level,  a recent study of total 
revenues for meteorology, airborne and satellite remote sensing estimated global revenues of 
the order US$ 7B for 2007 rising to approxi mately US$ 10B in 2012. These figures include 
the larger airborne remote sensing data ma rket. Concentrating only on EO, the projected 
growth is approximately 8% per annum. These estimates are consistent  with an independent 
study by Euroconsult as well as related studies of the market for Geographic Information Systems. 
Since 1995, total revenue of the European a nd Canadian EO service industry has been 
regularly assessed by a series  of independent studies comm issioned by both EC and ESA. 
Three snapshots of annual revenues within the industry (including both R&D grants and 
commercial sales) were compiled in 1995, 1998 and 2001 followed by two detailed assessments of the state and health of the EO  service industry in 2004 and most recently in 
2007. These studies show a consis tent picture – Eur ope earns between 33 % and 50% of the 
global commercial market for EO based services and this market is growing at approximately 
7 – 8 % per annum. The most recent assessment estimates total European and Canadian EO 
service revenue (not including data sales)  as approximately €306 M for 2006. In addition, 
combined data sales and ground station proc urement revenues were estimated to be 
approximately €106M. 
 
Historic evolution of total revenue in the Eu ropean EO service industry – source ESYS and 
Vega 
In comparison, the global commercial re venues in the much larger satellite 
telecommunications and navigation service sector s are estimated at approximately US$ 55 B 
per annum and US$ 21 B per annum respectively. 
 
EN 41   EN ANNEX III  
RESULTS  OF THE  STAKEHOLDER  CONSULTATION  
1. INTRODUCTION  
In 200480 the Commission underlined th e strategic role of GMES, identified elements for its 
implementation and the next year defined the stra tegy to move from concept to reality notably 
through a phased implementation approach81. The Space Council supported this approach and 
at the same time stressed the need for a conso lidation of the overall GMES architecture, and 
the identification of appropriate governance and financing schemes. 
In 2006, the Commission set up th e GMES Bureau to strengthen the management of GMES. 
The Bureau is tasked to prepare, in close co ordination with the rele vant stakeholders and 
users, the Commission proposal s and requirements on GMES. 
The following chapters provide a synthesis of the input rece ived by the Commission in the 
last two years from expert groups, stakehol ders and Member Stat es, and highlight the 
consensus achieved on the main issues where it is necessary to act to ensure an operational implementation of GMES. 
2. T
OWARDS AN OPERATIONAL EU GMES  PROGRAMME  
So far, GMES has been a European initiative that  has drawn political attention to the need to 
preserve and strengthen service and infrastructu re elements. Substantial R&D effort has been 
invested by the EU, ESA and thei r respective Member States. In the future, it is considered 
that GMES should be the product of a series of pa rtnerships that need to be defined at the EU 
level, taking into consideration the role of agencies, Member States, value added services 
industry (including SME’s) and user communities. 
The variety of partnerships, infrastructure and services involved in GMES is linked with the 
areas of interest of the different partners, notably Member States. Consequently, in the 
operational phase of GMES, this should be re flected in the programmatic, management and 
financing schemes. 
As a user-driven initiative, GMES should be de signed in such a way that there is continuous 
user uptake through constant cons ultation with users and integration of their changing needs 
in an iterative process. 
Financial and programmatic schemes should be de signed to guarantee long-term sustainability 
of GMES and the efficient management of Co mmunity funds, and to support scientific and 
technical service evolution. 
                                                 
80 Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES): Establishing a GMES capacity by 2008 – 
Action Plan 2004-2008 (COM (2004) 65 Final). 
81 Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES): from concept to reality (COM (2005) 565 
Final). 
 
EN 42   EN 3. DEFINITION OF THE EU GMES  PROGRAMME  
Following various Council Orientations and Reso lutions, the EU has been assigned a leading 
role in the development of GMES, with ES A being the implementing agency for its space 
observation component. The roles of all actors need  to be consolidated. It is imperative that 
the EU defines the overall vision for GMES a nd uses its available instruments such as 
coordination, financing and regulatory meas ures for the governance of the different 
components of GMES. Those financial and pr ogrammatic instruments should guarantee a 
long-term sustainability of services and infrastructure. 
Building on existing operational activities, pr evious and current R&D activities and the 
Preparatory Action, the GMES progr amme should contain a defin ition of its overall objectives 
and the areas where EU action is required, and indicative budgetary reso urces. It should have 
a clear scoping complementing the actions at  national and intergovernmental levels and 
ensuring the user driven  character of GMES. 
The GMES architecture consists  of several individual component s. Each of these components 
has its own characteristics in terms of owne rship, facilities, de cision-making process, 
financing model, industrial and economic set-up and manageme nt. Where lacking, dedicated 
governance mechanisms should be implemented for each of these GMES components taking 
into account existing and future technical and institutional specific characteristics and 
structures. 
The overall governance scheme will aim at es tablishing a sustainable institutional and 
financial framework for GMES and integratin g GMES actors with a view to establishing 
genuine partnerships. It should allow for the in teraction of the individual GMES components 
and their associated sub-governance schemes, a nd should ensure the efficient management of 
Community funds allocated to the programme, the management of necessary contractual 
relations for the operation of GMES, and lega l representation towards external actors and 
international communities and coordina tion bodies, including the Group on Earth 
Observations (GEO). 
Within the overall governance of the programme, m echanisms able to bring together actors of 
different institutional nature should be defi ned, ensuring a proper representation of the EU 
Member States. The specific issue of countries  who are not members of the EU and who are 
involved in the implementation of GMES ha s to be addressed in this context. 
Key issues raised by Stakeholders  
• Ensuring that the EU and its Member States ha ve the level of engage ment and incentive to 
commit to the long-term availability of institu tional observation and service infrastructure 
and resources for GMES. 
• The EU GMES Programme should be define d in such a way that it adequately 
complements existing financing and programma tic schemes, thereby becoming a decisive 
factor for the establishment of a part nership between the EU and national and 
intergovernmental actors. 
• Decision-making should be streamlined with cl ear roles and responsib ilities involving all 
different actors, and especially funding bodies, and putting users at th e forefront. The role 
of mandated bodies in this pro cess is particularly important. The process at the operational 
 
EN 43   EN phase should be transparent and binding on reaching consensus and on implementing 
decisions including the evolution of GMES. 
• To ensure transition to a governance system for an operational GMES  architecture, robust 
programme management is needed, particularly  to ensure integration between existing 
GMES components, coherent management  of key programme elements, and full 
involvement of all players. 
• User communities should be involved in gove rnance and management at overarching and 
component level, so as to promote a continuing dialogue between the entities defining 
user requirements, observation and service infr astructure and service operators, and the 
bodies deciding on the future evolution and funding of GMES. 
4. FUNDING  
GMES is essentially a shared and distributed sy stem and therefore it is expected to be co-
financed at European, intergove rnmental and national levels. 
The costs of GMES during its operational phase  depend on the scope of the services, the 
consolidated cost of the observa tion infrastructure needed to provide these services, and the 
extension of the inte rnational cooperation. 
The share of the EU budget in the overall amount will depend on the scope for the activities 
funded and managed at EU level. According to the additionality principle, the EU 
contribution will not replace existing and planned national investments but will rather complement them in order to en sure a long-term sustainability for GMES. There is a need for 
continuity of EU R&D budgets as well as for th e establishment of new budgets at EU level to 
support the operations of GMES. 
Key issues raised by Stakeholders
 
• Preparing an operational funding line in the European Union budget by 2014 while 
ensuring the phased operational implementatio n of GMES in line with Space Council 
orientations at the same timeframe. 
• Taking the necessary steps to expand the preparatory operational budget line introduced in 
2008 in order to cover expenses required for the finalisation of the build-up and early 
operation of GMES services and the GMES observation component. 
• The long-term GMES funding a pproach should ensure a smoot h transition between three 
stages that partly overlap: demonstration st age to be funded from R&D appropriations, 
pre-operational stage with mixed R&D a nd operational funding, operational stage with 
operational funding from EU a nd national operati onal budgets, bearing in mind that 
demonstration activities and future operational elements will continue to require R&D funding during the ope rational stage. 
 
EN 44   EN 5. THE DOWNSTREAM SECTOR  
GMES has been selected as one of the quick start projects in the Commission’s Initiative for 
Growth82. It should stimulate th e industrial sector to  expand its service offer and to develop 
the innovative integration of observing, communi cations and informati on technologies that 
will create opportunities for increased private sector usage of information sources. The 
European industrial base will be an important asset in maintaining a European autonomous capacity and political independence in decision making. 
The stimulation of the downstream sector should also be facilitated by the mobilisation of 
traditional EU instruments in support of comp etitiveness and innovation. Full, equal and open 
access to GMES data and information will cont ribute to the Lisbon growth and job strategy 
and preserve the competitive market in the value adding sector. 
Key issues raised by Stakeholders
 
• The GMES data and information policy should be based on the principle of “full and open 
access” to the extent allowed by the overall fi nancial model and other legal and security-
related constraints. 
• Structured user support measures, with specia l focus on capacity build ing for shared needs 
among different Member States and fo r different application sectors. 
• Structured business support measures with special focus on small and medium enterprises 
should stimulate growth and job creation. 
• In order to support the continued developmen t of innovative services , primarily in the 
downstream sector, R&D funds must c ontinue to be made available. 
6. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION  
Although European autonomy for GMES services  is of key importance, the EU recognises 
that international cooperation in Earth Observ ation is imperative to fulfill the need for 
information based on global in-situ and remote sensing data. This cannot be pursued without 
exchanging equivalent observation data through  cooperation schemes, thereby sharing the 
burden and cost of an expensive observation in frastructure with major non-European partners. 
Further, only a coordinated appr oach bringing together the main  actors in the world can lead 
to efficient counteraction faci ng global threats. The joint development of shared or 
complementary Earth observation tools has led th e major actors in the world to recognise the 
reality and criticality of the on-going climate change process. 
International cooperation should, when appropr iate and efficient, build on existing 
cooperation schemes developed by European na tional and intergovernmental actors with 
international counterparts. 
                                                 
82 “A European initiative for growth: Investing in networks and knowledge for growth and jobs: Final 
report to the European Council” COM(2003) 690 final/2 (21.11.2003) 
 
EN 45   EN Among those is the GEO process. GMES will be the main European contribution to the global 
10-year implementation plan for the Global Eart h Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). 
By registering GMES components in the GEO SS, GMES will contribute to increasing the 
knowledge of the Earth processes, enhance th e prediction of the Earth systems, and will 
encourage the increased use of Earth observatio n, the development of a system of worldwide 
observation systems, and collaborative tools fo r observation and analysis  with international 
partners. 
Key issues raised by Stakeholders  
The strategy regarding possibi lities of international coopera tion linked to GMES should be 
built along the following lines: 
• Balanced cooperation on observation infrastruc ture that does not compromise the GMES 
objective for European autonomy in information generation, access and control and 
technological capacity  in key areas;  
• R&D cooperation to prepare the future and foster interoperability; 
• Cooperation, in line with EU external relati ons policies, especially  for contributing to 
sustainable development, as well as for European solidarity and capacity building 
approach including for instance support to food security, hu manitarian aid, management 
of emergencies and crises. 
• Strengthening the existing political mandate to support a co-ordinated European approach 
within the current development of the GE O process to implement the GEOSS data 
sharing principles and to define the European  contribution to this international endeavour. 
7. IMPLEMENTING GMES:  CONSOLIDATED VIEWS AND OPEN ISSUES PER COMPONENT  
Following the wide consultation notably th rough the GMES Adviso ry Council and in 
accordance with the Munich Roadmap , there is now a shared visi on on the scope, architecture, 
and governance principles for GMES. The followi ng sections summarise, starting from the 
existing stakeholders’ consensus where available,  the main issues raised by Stakeholders and 
linked to the different component s of the GMES architecture. 
7.1. The GMES Service Component 
Through its service component, GMES will ensure  regular observation and monitoring of the 
sub-systems of the Earth– includ ing its atmosphere, oceans a nd continental surfaces – and 
will provide reliable, validated information in support of a broad range of environmental and 
security applications and decisions. According the current analysis of the user needs, the 
scoping of these services is as follows: 
• Land monitoring 
The Land Monitoring Core Service (LMCS) addre sses a wide range of resources and policies 
(concerning soils, water, agricu lture, forestry, biodiversity, tr ansport, regional development 
etc.) involving very diverse user communities at  global, European, national, regional and local 
level, requiring different types of inform ation, from common multi-purpose up to specific 
information in terms of thematic or geographical area. 
 
EN 46   EN The LMCS will offer a portfolio of data and pr oducts, with different levels of elaboration 
(from pre-processed images to elaborated in formation), finding a compromise between multi-
purpose requirements and specific thematic requ irements, that are important for addressing 
European policies and for land management support. 
Multi-purpose products will include pre-processed spaceborne and airborne observation 
products, specific reference data complementi ng existing reference data (e.g. European 
Digital Elevation Model), bio-geophysical parameters (dynamic vegetation and surface 
parameters in real-time at global level); a se t of land use / land cover and land cover change 
products. 
Thematic products at European or global levels such as crop forecasts, agricultural statistics, 
water models (quality, irrigation), environmen tal indicators, carbon fluxes, soil degradation 
and desertification models, urban and industr ial areas and hot spots, will address more 
specific thematic requirements. 
• Marine 
The objective of the Marine Core Service (MCS ) is to establish an integrated European 
capacity for ocean forecasting and monitoring allowing a systematic delivery of forecasts 
(from one day nowcasting to one month seasonal forecasting), re-analysis (time series) and 
scenario simulations (for climat e change impact assessments): 
– on sea state and dynamics (e.g. 3D  currents, temperature, sa linity) and primary ecosystem 
(surface phytoplankton and primary production) characteristics; and 
– at global scale (all world ocean) with da ily updates on 5-10 km horizontal grids and over 
European regional seas (Baltic, Mediterranean, No rth Sea, North East Atlantic Basin), with 
daily updates at customised space reso lution (1-5 km horizontal grids). 
As oceanographic models form the basis of its global and regional foreca st services, the MCS 
depends on observation data from space and in-situ  infrastructure and weather analysis and 
forecast information from numerical weather pr ediction models. Thematic Assembly Centres 
will be responsible for specific pre-processing of differe nt parameters to be used as 
observation time-series and in put to the global and regi onal Monitoring and Forecasting 
Centres. Regional models are foreseen for th e Baltic, Mediterranean, Black Seas, Arctic 
Ocean, Northwest Shelf and the North Atlantic. 
• Atmosphere 
The GMES Atmosphere Core Service (GACS) provides products for three main application 
areas: (i) air quality, including long range transport of pollution, (ii) climate forcing and (iii) 
stratospheric ozone, UV and solar radiation. Thes e products cover short term (including near 
real-time) to long term information n eeds (especially through reanalysis). 
The atmospheric service will fill existing gaps in accessible information on atmospheric 
chemistry and composition. This will include: 
– provision of Global Climate Observing Syst em (GCOS) Essential Climate Variables 
(ECV's) compliant with Global Climate Ob serving System (GCOS) requirements; 
– gridded information on atmospheric composition; 
 
EN 47   EN – long-term databases in order to  clearly establish trends;  
– reanalysis at regular intervals; 
– ensuring effective access to in-situ and satellite observation data, including in near real 
time for services, e.g. in the field of solar energy; 
– forecasting and assessment capabilities for policy development, health and other 
applications. 
• Emergency management 
The objective is to deli ver a set of basic servic es to improve the capability of users to face 
major emergencies at national, European and globa l levels either within or outside Europe. It 
will cover information relating to natural di sasters including meteorological-driven hazards 
(e.g. storms, fires, floods), geophysical ha zards (e.g. earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic 
eruptions, landslides and subsidence), and man made disasters and humanitarian emergencies. 
The initial scope of the GMES Emergency Resp onse Core Service (ERCS) is to provide rapid 
mapping services, delivering reference maps  and assessment maps with a synthetic 
representation of anomalous events, their impact  following effects and their time and space 
evolution, as well as the distri bution in space and time of the available resources (rescue 
teams, equipment, material etc.), assets, and the actual damage. The ERCS will expand 
beyond the emergency response part of the crisis cycle and evolve to cover the entire crisis 
cycle (crisis prevention, early warning, post-crisis reconstruc tion and situation assessment). 
The products will be diversified (mapping serv ices, forecasts and early warning systems, 
scenario preparation). 
• Security 
Preliminary discussions with diffe rent stakeholders have shown that security users should be 
offered the same rights as other user users of GMES services bearing in mind that GMES is a 
civil system under civil control.  Experienced security actors unde rlined the sensitivity linked 
to the acquisition, handling and dissemination of  geospatial information. Security users have 
specific needs which justify the creation of specific services. 
In order for GMES services, data and informa tion, to be used for public decision-making, 
most particularly but not solely for what concer ns security-related services, they should fulfil 
basic security criteria in term s of confidentiality, anonymity, traceab ility as well as security of 
infrastructure and processes. These requirements will need to be considered by GMES services in general without hi ndering their overall development. 
With the aim to raise stakeholder's awaren ess and to obtain guidance for scoping and 
implementation, the EU Institute for Security  Studies held a seminar on the security 
dimension of GMES in March 2007. The discussi ons at the seminar identified a number of 
areas where GMES could have a relevant ro le to play in facilitating monitoring or 
implementation of policies, including e.g. maritime and border su rveillance and global 
situation awareness. Following the coordina tion between the Commission and the General 
Secretariat of the Council, a number of action areas meeting policy requirements have been 
identified including: border surveillance, mar itime surveillance and support to EU external 
action. 
 
EN 48   EN The specific support of GMES to se curity applications as well as  the importance of correctly 
addressing security of information produced by  GMES is currently being elaborated by the 
Commission. The results of ongoing analyses w ill be communicated at a later stage. 
Key issues raised by Stakeholders  
• Ensure in the definition of the initial scope for GMES services  that their deliverables meet 
user needs (including the needs of downstream sector). 
• Establish a mechanism for approval and con tinuous management of user feedback and 
requirements as well as for the va lidation of their implementation. 
• Appropriate balance among c oordination, financing and re gulatory actions by the EU. 
• Establish operational financing source s and associated procurement policy. 
7.2. The GMES Space Component 
The GMES Space Component (KSC) shall ensure sustainable provision of satellite derived 
Earth observation data to the GMES service co mponent. The KSC archite cture is driven by 
and derived from service requirements provided by the user communities represented in the overall GMES governance scheme. This requires th at any investment in the space component 
needs to correspond to user requirem ents aggregated by the Commission. 
The KSC is subject to a space infrastructure mission lifecycle which is driven by service 
requirements and which determines the roles a nd responsibilities of the various actors, 
funding sources and decision-making process. This lifecycle includes the following stages: 
• demonstration stage through missions or tec hnologies implemented with R&D funding; 
• pre-operational stage with initial elements of  an operational series through a mix of R&D 
and operational funding; and 
• operational stage with recurrent el ements of an operational series
83. 
Stakeholders agree that the main challenge today is to ensure the implementation of the 
second and third stages mentioned above. This is true for a major part of KSC missions, 
including the ESA Sentinels and most of the national missions in Europe. 
The current situation presents gaps and cannot gua rantee the availability and continuity of the 
whole KSC mission range and mission lifecycle described above. The av ailability of KSC 
missions covering the third stage of lifecycle, i.e. recurrent elements of operational series, should be specifically considered. This wo uld imply organising different funding and 
associated procurement policies. 
                                                
 
83 For instance, regarding the Sentinel missions, the recurrent units are defined as those units that follow 
after the completion of the full operational capability. In addition, it is essential that also during the 
operational stage R&D elements are implemented, e.g. for the development of the next generation 
Sentinels, which will incur the need for R&D funds. 
 
EN 49   EN Moreover, it is clear that at least four  major functional role s are required, including 
coordination of infrastructure availability, procurement and operations of the operational 
infrastructure, and R&D for future infrastruc ture. These functions need to be further 
developed or created for sust aining an operational European  capacity as shown in the 
following paragraphs. While the op eration of national assets will  clearly remain in the hands 
of respective national and commercial operators, the EUMETSAT and ESA capacities will be operated by European public entities that ha ve the appropriate manda te and are technically 
capable of providing such operational services. 
There is need to identify a decision-making pro cess which brings together all relevant GMES 
Space Component partners in Europe. This process should build on the distributed architecture of the GMES Space Component. It should start with the definition and 
prioritisation of GMES service requirements  through the general GMES governance scheme. 
Subsequently, these service requirements should be translated into mission and architecture 
requirements taking into consideration especially  the available resources and plans for Earth 
Observation space infrastructure. ESA, as coordi nator of this GMES component, should then 
develop an implementation plan to be steere d and approved by the gene ral GMES governance 
which will allocate its resources, if necessary wi th prioritisation decisions. At this stage, the 
GMES Space Component partners coordinate d by ESA should then proceed with the 
implementation following the most appropriate programmatic scheme. 
The decision-making process should take into  consideration the implementation process, 
including decision making and funding, of individual partners. Nevertheless, there is a need to 
establish a process linking the various partners enabling to reach consensus and to drive the 
implementation (including financing) process. 
Regarding financing, as the KSC capacities gradually reach the third stage of the operational 
lifecycle (i.e. recurrent elements of operationa l series), one major issue linked to the long-
term continuity of the KSC is the availab ility of operational fundi ng sources, notably the 
possibility to establish operational funding fr om the EU budget completing future operational 
funding sources at national level. 
The precise content and costing of the KSC w ill drive the establishment of new operational 
budgets. Such issues are careful ly examined in the long-term implementation plans for the 
GMES Space Component to be elaborated by ESA with EUMETSAT, Member States and 
other stakeholders. This proce ss is expected to be finalised  by 2009 to allow the Commission 
to fulfil its commitment to prepare proposals on the necessary EU operational budget. 
Key issues raised by Stakeholders
 
• Ensure that the KSC corresponds to the requirements of GMES services 
• Ensure an overall programmatic approach fo r a full mission lifecycle with special focus 
on a sustainable approach for recurrent elements of operational series. 
• Identify how Member States can contribute  to the GMES Space Component with their 
national missions and how the continuity  of these missions can be ensured. 
• Finalise content and costing of  the KSC through overall consensus of the long-term KSC 
implementation plans to be coordinated by ESA. 
 
EN 50   EN • Identify the steps towards the establishmen t of operating entities and the definition of 
their role. 
• Establish decision-making processes within the GMES Space Component and identify its 
involvement in the GMES overall governance. 
• Establish operational financing sources and the associated industrial policy for 
infrastructure and data. 
7.3. The in situ Component  
The in-situ observation component is based on an observation infrastructure owned and 
operated to a large degree by the Member States, in some cases coordinated in the frame of 
European or international networ ks. In-situ observation activities and associated infrastructure 
derive from a range of national, EU and intern ational regulatory requirements and agreements 
or form part of research processes. None were  created to meet the needs of GMES, and they 
generally cover a much wider fi eld than the requirements of GMES services. In-situ data 
flows, and products, are often inconsistent be tween different collection bodies, incomplete, 
not well-adapted to GMES service needs (e.g. for near real time data), subject to usage 
conditions that can affect th eir ready availability, and depe ndent on research funding. They 
therefore do not have the necessa ry operational sustainability. 
In-situ observation data provide data not availabl e from space sources (e.g. in the marine area, 
data from submersible floats) or essential reference data (e .g. topographic maps), and could 
also be used for calibration of space data or validation of space-based derived parameters. 
The existing observation infrastructure is su bject to a complex pattern of ownership and 
management, responds to a range of national, EU and international regulatory requirements and from numerous research processes. Many na tional, European and international networks 
coordinate monitoring and the anal ysis and consolidation of data. 
In-situ observation data flows are highly fragment ed; there are significant gaps in the data; 
there are inconsistencies between  data collected by different bodies; and systems are not well 
adapted to GMES service needs (e.g. for near  real time observation requirements in some 
cases). 
Each service Implementation Gr oup (IG) has produced its own list of essential in-situ data 
flows. This process has demonstrated wide differences between the requirements of the 
services. Given the complexity of the in -situ observation component, the European 
Environment Agency (EEA) has been tasked by  the Commission to an alyse and coordinate 
the in-situ observation data requirements of GMES. 
Discussion among stakeholders of how to realise these requirements has brought to the 
surface a number of issues, including: 
• concerns that Member States might not in pr actice, and for various reasons, be able or 
willing to guarantee the provision of in-situ observation input and that EU funding might 
need to be considered; 
 
EN 51   EN • a need for more clarity about what envir onmental communities might gain from GMES 
services in return for the provision of input, pa rticularly as in practi ce their interest would 
often be in downstream services; 
• what some regard as lack of transparency in the development of the initiative so far, and 
inadequate engagement of national authorities; 
• the importance of quality control for input data for services. 
A service-driven approach based on the evolving  GMES Services needs to be followed. This 
will require close engagement with bodies in Me mber States and international and European 
coordinating bodies, which are ke y players in the management of data provision; global in-
situ observation networks; and channels of user focus, esp ecially in ensuring that data and 
products delivered by GMES services to which th ey contribute genuinely meet their needs – 
including for downstream services. 
The financial responsibility for most in-situ observation data gathering and management is 
outside the EU framework, and GMES should not change this. But funding issues for new 
elements may need to be addresse d in the framework of GMES funding. 
Key issues raised by Stakeholders  
• Reviewing organisational structures and ensuri ng adequate engageme nt of environmental 
bodies as both providers of data and products, and users of services. 
• Identifying possible instrument s of coordination, regulatio n or funding, shared between 
the EU and Member States, to facilitate the provision of in situ input. 
• Identification of content and costs of GM ES in situ observation component through 
overall consensus on the medium and long term scenarios under the coordination of 
relevant European institutions. 
• Identification and co-ordination of the Euro pean approach on globa l in-situ observation 
networks. 
• Contributing to the continuity of data pr ovision and a mechanism for assessing data 
quality. 
8. GMES  DATA AND INFORMATION POLICY AND DATA MANAGEMENT  
The complex GMES architecture includes data and information flowing among the different 
components and from/to sources outside the GMES  perimeter. In particular, the observation 
infrastructure component produces and delivers data of various pr ocessing levels and sources. 
Data from this component are regularly pro cessed by the GMES Service component (in this 
case, there is a flow of data between the comp onents) in order to generate information made 
available to users, includ ing the downstream sector. 
Due to the complexity of an operational GMES  architecture, a two-st ep process should be 
envisaged for elaborating a GMES data and in formation policy, based on (i) the definition of 
 
EN 52   EN objectives and principles of a GMES Data Policy, and (ii) the implementation of these 
objectives and principles. 
The principles of the GMES data policy are to promote the widest possible use and sharing of 
GMES data, to strengthen markets using Eart h Observation (and esp ecially the European 
downstream sector) and consequently to enable growth and job creation, to contribute to the 
sustainability of the provision of GMES data, to ensure adequate protection of GMES data, 
and to support the European public sector, incl uding its research communities. An objective 
should then be that GMES data should therefor e be fully and openly ac cessible, within the 
constraints and exceptions (e.g. security issues) deriving from the overall GMES legal and policy environment. This principle is not onl y compliant with the INSPIRE rules and in 
accordance with the GEOSS Data Sharing Prin ciples, but also targets the objective of 
promoting the widest possible us e and sharing of GMES data. 
GMES data are provided in a complex legal and financial environment. Data flows will be 
subject to binding rules at national, Commun ity and international level. The detailed 
implementation mechanisms for a GMES data and information policy will not only depend on
 
these legal constraints, but also on the gove rnance framework and financing model for the 
GMES Service in question. 
Key issues raised by Stakeholders  
• Achieve consensus on the high-level objecti ves and principles for GMES data and 
information policy and the related financial model. 
• Identify ways to implement data policy objectives and principles. 
 
EN 53   EN ANNEX IV  
CONSISTENCY  WITH  SPECIFIC  COMMUNITY  POLICIES   
This Annex contains an analysis of the comple mentarity of GMES with other EU policies in 
the field of emergency response and land monitoring.  
1. SUPPORT TO EMERGENCY RESPONSE SERVICES  
Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) of the Directorate General for Environment 
The MIC, operated by the European Commission in  Brussels, is the operational heart of the 
Community Mechanism for Civil Protection. Any country affected by a major disaster – inside 
or outside the EU – can launch a request for assistance throu gh the MIC. The GMES services 
may be triggered by the MIC or directly by th e civil protection author ities of EU Member 
States. The MIC will be informed of the information requested and received by civil 
protection authorities. The MIC is thus fully involved in the provision of GMES services. 
Flood and Fires Alert and Monitoring Systems 
Some Member States have de veloped national alert system s for floods and fires. In 
complement to those activities, two alert system s, developed by the EC Joint Research Centre 
in collaboration with Member States, are wo rking at European level: the European Flood 
Alert System (EFAS) and the European Fore st Fire Information System (EFFIS). This 
information is delivered through the MIC.  
Global Disaster Alert an d Coordination System 
Jointly with the United Nations, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission 
coordinates the Global Disaster  Alert and Coordination System (GDACS), which is a near 
real-time alert system for na tural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, floods and 
volcanic eruptions) and a tool for disaster response. GDACS has a global, rather than 
European, scope and is therefore especially relevant to support external actions. Following the 
users’ requirements review at Commission servi ces level, operational GMES services should 
interface with GDACS. 
International Charter on Space and Major Disasters ("the Charter") 
The Charter aims at providing a unified system of space data acquisiti on and delivery to those 
affected by natural or man-made disasters through authorised users. Each member agency has 
committed resources to support the provisions of  the Charter and thus helps mitigate the 
impact of disasters on huma n life and property. Unlike oper ational GMES services, the 
Charter is a purely voluntary mechanism and therefore cannot replace operational GMES 
services in support of emergency response. 
 
EN 54   EN  
2. LAND MONITORING  
Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) GMES will contribute to and benefit from the SEIS. First GMES contributes to the 
availability of relevant data/products provi ded through its services . Secondly, SEIS will 
contribute to in situ data flows for GMES by enabling near real time availability of data 
(starting with data covered by environmental legi slation, the initial focus of SEIS, and later on 
EEA Reportnet datastreams, wh ich are partly voluntary).  
Infrastructure for Spatial Info rmation in Europe (INSPIRE) 
INSPIRE is based on a Directive
84 that covers spatial data held by public authorities in the 
Member States. As outlined in the Communication, GMES need  to be compliant with the 
INSPIRE framework. It should be reiterated that  INSPIRE does not oblige Member States to 
create new geo-spatial data sets, whereas the objective of GMES is to ensure the continuous 
availability of operational Earth observation services. 
                                                 
84 Directive 2007/2/EC of 14 March 2007. 
 
EN 55   EN ANNEX V  
ASSESSMENTS  OF THE  COSTS  AND  BENEFITS  OF COMMUNITY  
INTERVENTION  CONCERNING  OPERATIONAL  EMERGENCY  
RESPONSE  AND  LAND  MONITORING  SERVICES 
1. COST ASSESSMENT  
If it is assumed that the Community finances the full set of operational activities in the field of 
emergency response and land monitoring descri bed in sections 2.2.1 and 2.2.2, the costs of 
GMES initial oeprations for EU part would amount to 150 M € for the period 2011 – 2103, 
including 43 M€ for research activities from  the space theme of FP 7 for research actions 
accompanying GMES initial operations  (see the cost table below). 
Activities TOTAL 2011-2013 (in M€) 
Emergency Response services 12 
Land Monitoring services 26 
Uptake of the services by the users 5 
Data access 24 
GMES Space component 40 
TOTAL COSTS  107 
TOTAL COSTS FOR 
RESEARCH ACTIVITIES 
UNDER THE FP7 SPACE 
THEME ACCOMPANYING 
INITIAL OPERATIONS  43 
TOTAL (including FP 7) 150 
This envelope complements the foll owing funding for GMES within FP 7: 
Development of Services (Marine, Atmosphere, Climate, Security),  
including data access for FP projects 215 MEUR 
Development of Space infrastructu re co-funded with ESA 460 MEUR 
A full analysis of the total costs of GMES (i ncluding costs for nationa l and intergovernmental 
activities and total infr astructure cost) is not  possible in practice for the period 2011 – 2013, 
as it is difficult to obtain de tailed input from Member States  in the available timeframe. 
Nevertheless, past experience in previous Corine Land cover exercises demonstrates that 
depending on the services, the leverage of EU funding in the Member States might be up to 
1:3 (in terms of the ratio of Co mmunity budgets and national budgets). 
 
EN 56   EN A more detailed explanation of the activities that will be fi nanced can be found below. The 
proposed Regulation is targeted at public and private organisations an d businesses active in 
the provision of Earth observat ion-based services. Following th e general principle that GMES 
must avoid duplication of existing capacities, the services financed in the framework of GMES Initial Operations complement existing services based on US satellite capacity. US satellite capacity could be used in certai n cases to provide data for GMES services. 
1.1. Emergency response services 
Land monitoring services include European mapping service for Emergency Response, and 
product integration for emergency response. 
1.1.1.  European mapping service for Emergency Response  
European mapping service for emergency response will offer a combination of maps and/or 
various levels of pre-processe d data produced at European level upon request from users: 
• Rapid mapping activated on demand by users in case of crisis event, showing the extent 
and impact of the events during crisis and post-crisis phase.  
• Other mapping on demand covering the other phases  of the response cycle: risk mapping in 
support to the prevention phase, mapping for the reconstruction phase, or thematic 
mapping. 
• Reference mapping providing basic cartogra phic information as routine background 
production (not ‘on demand’) on ‘hotspot risk areas’ to allow rapid delivery in case of 
crisis (less than 6 h). 
• Validation and quality control activities of the maps, which correspond to 10% of the 
mapping production costs. 
• Data archiving, catalogue a nd dissemination functions  
1.1.2.  Product integration for emergency response:  
Some user communities in the MS have already developed activities in the field of Remote 
Sensing applied to Emergency Response, which can  be enhanced with data provided at EU 
level. This action will focus on specific dedi cated information for national or regional end-
users, on the basis of raw-prep-pro cessed data provided by EU level. 
1.2. Land monitoring services 
Land monitoring services will focus on Periodic Land Cover mapping service on the 
European, regional and national level, and dynamic Land monito ring activities incl. Essential 
Climate Variables in support to  Climate Change monitoring. 
1.2.1.  Periodic Land Cover mapping services 
Periodic Land Cover mapping serv ices will comprise a combination of three types of 
information (pre-processed images, reference data and multiple land cover/land use mapping 
products). It will cover: 
 
EN 57   EN • Image pre-processing. 
• Access to reference data at European level (mainly topographic data  at various scales, 
DEM, and possibly orthophotos). 
• Multiple Land cover/land use and land cover change products 
• Pan-EU Land cover products  
• Urban Atlas maps at VHR  
– Validation and quality cont rol activities of the  
– Data archiving, catalogue a nd dissemination functions 
• For the Pan-EU land cover/land cover change ac tivities, an approach based on the synergy 
with activities at national or regional level could be developed. The objective would be to 
better harmonise and synchronise regional, national and European  activities, and to derive 
European products from the aggregation of national and regional i nventories, using a 
common object-oriented model based on the IN SPIRE data specifications for land cover 
datasets. 
1.2.2.  Dynamic Land monitoring activiti es incl. Essential Climat e Variables in support to 
Climate Change 
For dynamic Land monitoring activiti es include monitoring of Esse ntial Climate Variables in 
support to Climate Change monitoring. It is ex pected to produce on an  operational and daily 
basis a set of bio-geophysical parameters, in support to the implementa tion of the terrestrial 
ECV's (Essential Climate Variables) defined by GCOS (Global Climate Observation System) 
and GTOS (Global Terrestrial Observing System ). These parameters (Vegetation, Surface 
radiation, Fire, Water, Snow, permafrost, soil mo isture parameters) will be mostly generated 
from low/medium resolution images in Near Real Time.  
1.3. Auxiliary activities 
Measure to support user upt ake include the following: 
• The implementation of technical interfaces be tween users and services adapted to the 
specific user environment (IT, procedures etc.) 
• The validation of these interf aces in operational conditions 
• Training of users 
• Communication activities to disseminate information to various user communities. 
Data access activities will ensure  that the services have access to the necessary data from 
space mission and in situ infrastructure. Activities within the GMES Space Component include routine operations of three space missions  currently developed in the framework of 
the ESAGMES Space Component Programme (Sentinels 1A, 2A, and 3A). 
 
EN 58   EN 2. ASSESSMENT OF BENEFITS  
Benefits mentioned in the repo rt are linked to the modular im plementation of an operational 
GMES starting in 2008-2009 with the preparatory actions on emergency and land monitoring 
services, and following th em up with the 2011-2013 prog ramme. While they are indirect  
benefits, in the sense that they depend on the actual use of  GMES services by users (in 
particular public authorities), they cannot  be considered as independent from the 
implementation timing ("merely postponed"). A stop-and-go approach (i.e. products tested with the preparatory actions disappear for a few y ears before being put agai n at the disposal in 
2014) would seriously undermine th e confidence of users and ther efore the materialisation of 
benefits. The Impact Assessment is based on the assumption that  the relevant GMES services 
will be fully operational in 2011. Benefits in th is Annex have been ca lculated for option 3 
(best case scenario). As outlined in the report, the best case scenarii of Options 1 and 2 would have comparable benefits, provided that the best case scenarii for these options are rather unlikely.  
2.1. Benefits of Emergency response service 
As outlined above, the emergency response servi ces cover the full cycle of risk mapping in 
support to the prevention phase, mapping for the reconstruction phase, or thematic mapping. 
The benefits of operational mappi ng services in support of emerge ncy service are discussed in 
more detail for two areas, namely response to floods and forest fires. In both cases, the 
primary users are civil pr otection authorities.  
For flood response, benefits are based on the as sumption that total damages can be reduced by 
a certain percentage because  of the use of flood maps. Average annual flood damage 
(calculated for the period 1980 – 2005) was around 2.2 billion € in 2005 prices
85.  
The GMES contribution to reductions in the im pacts of flooding needs to be judged against 
the background of existing hydrolog ical networks and warning systems. Such systems involve 
a network of river gauges which have telemetr y links to flood forecasting centres. As with 
many environmental systems, these work well under normal conditions, but their performance can become erratic when faced with extremes.  
Information which can help to characterise the extremes is therefore very important and this is 
one area where GMES could make an important contribution. By delineating the extent of 
floods it is possible to make improvements to  the models which in turn allow better 
predictions, as well as impr oving the baseline for planning fl ood alleviation schemes. GMES 
could therefore make an important contributio n to flood hydrology. It should be noted that 
although GMES will include in-s itu monitoring as well as space based applications, the value 
of the pre-existing river gauge and telemetr y networks is not in cluded in the GMES 
contribution because these would con tinue to be operated without GMES. 
A workshop was held with key stakeholders to assess the extent to which GMES could 
contribute to flood forecasting and ultimately, da mage cost reduction. Stakeholders suggested 
                                                
 
85 To calculate this number, the UNITE methodology was used, which provides an assessments of the 
value of a life saved. The Value Of Statistical Life (VOSL) is taken to be €1.5M per capita. The effects 
of flood morbidity are estimated to  average about 1.5 months, i.e. 0.125 of a year, allowing for some 
direct injuries and displacement as  discussed above. Estimates for property damages are based on the 
EM-DAT data base, see PWC, Socio-economic analysis of GMES benefits, p 138 – 139.   
 
EN 59   EN that GMES could reduce damage, and noted that in, inputs to planning and risk management 
the context of extreme events. This assumption is  regarded as conservati ve by the consultant 
that cirred out the assessment (PWC). This would correspond to net economic benefits of 
around €135 million in 201286. 
Also regarding wildfires, the benefits are ba sed on the assumption that total damages can be 
reduced by a certain percentage because of GMES. Average annual wildfire damage 
(calculated for the period 1980 – 2005) was around 141 million € in 2005 prices87. 
GMES services could provide civ il protection authoritie s with inputs for all stages of action in 
relation to wildfires. Prior to  events, GMES could provide i nputs to assessments of biomass 
available for burning and guidan ce on strategies for minimisi ng risk. During events, GMES 
provides a fast appraisal of the fi re situation which in turn allo ws authorities to optimise the 
fire fighting facilities at thei r disposal. The services also allow for damage appraisal. 
The assessment of the GMES input here centres on the ability to cont ribute actively to the 
management of events which are still in progre ss. Stakeholders noted that the majority of 
these benefits were likely to accrue in Southern Europe where prevalence of wildfires is greatest. These improvements are based primaril y on improvements in fire-fighting operations 
enabled by rapid and regular situation update s that GMES provides alongside other vital 
information such as weather dynamics. It is also  assumed that GMES will contribute to fire 
risk assessments and that these will also  help with longer term counter-measures. 
Stakeholders consulted thought that GMES c ould deliver a 1% reduction in mortality, 
morbidity and property damage. This would correspond to net economic benefits of 
around 9 million € in 2012
88. 
To sum up it can be said that the benefits of GMES emergency services exceed the cost 
of service provision at Co mmunity level significantly. 
2.2. Benefits of land monitoring service 
The products described in Annex II are mostly of a generic, multipurpose nature. They are 
intermediate in the sense that normally they would be used to produce more detailed thematic services. Consequently, it is difficult to calcul ate benefits of these pr oducts on a stand alone 
basis
89. In the following, the benefits of selected products that would be  based on the generic 
land cover products above are discussed, including 
• agriculture and rural development; 
• urban and regional policies; 
• ecosystems and biodiversity – forest monitoring. 
                                                 
86 See PWC, Socio-economic analysis of GMES benefits, p 146 – 147. 
87 Again, the Value Of Statistical Life (VOSL) is take n to be €1.5M per capita. Morbidity figures take into 
consideration acute health problem s and chronic health problems and are estimated to average about 3 
months, i.e. 0.25 of a year. Estimates for Property damages are based on the EM-DAT data base, see 
PWC, Socio-economic analysis of GMES benefits, p 140 – 141.   
88 See PWC, Socio-economic analysis of GMES benefits, p 148 – 149. 
89 For a discussion of potential benefits of generic land cover products, see the Cost Benefit Analysis for 
the GMES Service Element SAGE (Soil and Wa ter), prepared by ECORYS, available at 
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/GMES/S AGE_C2_Ph2_V2%5B1%5D.01_29_08_04.pdf. 
 
EN 60   EN In the field of agriculture and rural development , GMES, through providing this land use 
and land cover data more frequently, at higher spatial resolution, with continuity over time, 
could potentially support the CAP informati on requirements, expanding on current MARS 
capabilities. This would include  development of indicators a nd progress monitoring of cross-
compliance, agri-environmental and diversification measures , supporting DG Agriculture’s 
aim to have a clear and financially sound agri cultural policy. Other applications of GMES, 
including for example, irrigation pressure ma pping and soil sealing mapping also offer the 
potential for landowners to enhance yields th rough better predictive tool s to manage scarce 
resources such as water90. 
Regarding Urban Management , GMES could enable local au thorities and other users to 
understand the impacts of land use policy bette r, anticipate trends, develop policies to 
minimise urban sprawl/soil sealing and enable them to manage the urban environment, and 
the urban-rural interface in a more effective way91. Potential benefits of urban services were 
discussed in more detail in the Cost Benefit Analysis of the project GMES Urban Services 
(GUS)92. GUS is a predecessor of Urban Atlas, which means that the CBA for GUS is of 
relevance also for initial operational GMES services.  
In the GUS CBA, the main development trends  affecting the future demand for urban 
environmental information and spatial planning include: 
• Increased EU regulation related to urban ar eas impacting the need for Urban spatial 
planning combined with increased pressure fr om citizens to improve life quality in urban 
areas  
• Implementation of geographic information system s (GIS) and an increase in the level of 
sophistication regarding the use of GIS and the Internet within the City and Regional 
administrations will continue to  facilitate the development of eGovernment services to the 
citizens and indirectly act as an important driv er for the use of geographical information in 
a broader sense. 
The main monetary benefits  identified in the GUS CBA derive from efficiency gains within 
City and Regional administratio ns and an improved means of impact assessment at EU 
institutions level, notably th e evaluation of the implementati on of the EC Structural Funds. 
For the period 2011 – 2013, the GUS CBA foresees total benefits of around 168 million €, 
compared to overall costs of around 21 M€93. 
In the field of  biodiversity and ecosystem servi ces, including forest monitoring, GMES 
could potentially help improve the management of forest s grown for logging; increase 
regeneration through monitoring disturbances and re-growth; and provide information on 
forest indicators and land cover to improve pol icy making. This represents a separable impact 
from CO2 sequestration benefits through avoided deforestation. Here, the benefits are related 
solely to the value of forest areas as ecosystem s that provide a range of direct and indirect 
services over the time pe riod under consideration.   
                                                 
90 See PWC, Socio-economic analysis of GMES benefits, p 96. 
91 See PWC, Socio-economic analysis of GMES benefits, p 96 – 97. 
92 Available at 
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/GMES/URBAN _C2_Ph2_V2%5B1%5D.0_00_12_04_Final.pdf. 
93 See the GUS CBA, p 1, 32 and 42.  
 
EN 61   EN The economic benefits of GMES can be calcula ted through avoided defore station (attributable 
to GMES) on the basis that GMES could reduce deforestation by 5%-10%. It is important to 
note that due to the inherent difficulty in separating the contribution of GMES from the 
potential contribution of other dependencies, this figure repres ents the total GMES potential 
deforestation reduction, rather than that which may specifically be attributable to GMES. Valuing tropical forest at €105/Ha, the globa l annual economic costs of deforestation is 
calculated as €1.5 billion (2005 pr ices). Net economic benefits would thus amount to between 
€75-150 million per annum (in nominal undiscounted terms)
94. 
                                                 
94 See PWC, Socio-economic analys is of GMES benefits, p 107.