COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT Accompanying the document Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the Copernicus Programme and repealing Regulation (EU) No 911/2010
Date: 2013-05-29
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU financing, EU programme, marketing, observation, public safety, satellite, space research

EUROPEAN 
COMMISSION 

Brussels, 29.5.2013  
SWD(2013) 191 final 

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT 

Accompanying the document 

Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council 

establishing the Copernicus Programme and repealing Regulation (EU) No 911/2010 

{COM(2013) 312 final} 
{SWD(2013) 190 final} 

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COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT 

Accompanying the document 

Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council 

establishing the Copernicus Programme and repealing Regulation (EU) No 911/2010 

PRELIMINARY REMARK 
In February 2013 a new version of Copernicus Impact Assessment (IA), updating the version 
previously  submitted  to  accompany  the  document  on  the  Future  of  the  European  Earth 
monitoring programme (GMES), was submitted to the Impact Assessment Board (IAB). This 
re-submission took into account the recent Council decision on the MFF and hence focused 
on  the  optimum  way  to  use  the  budget  allocated  to  Copernicus.  It  built  on  previous  Cost-
Benefit  Analyses,  incorporated  the  results  of  new  studies  performed  in  2012  and  2013  and 
considered policy options illustrated by the relative merits of varying the apportionment of the 
given  proposed  budget  to  the  space,  in  situ  and  services  components.  The  document  that  is 
now circulating reflects the adjustments to the Impact Assessment that follow the additional 
comments received by the IAB. 
UNDERLYING PROBLEM TO BE ADDRESSED BY GMES/COPERNICUS 

– 

Insufficient existing earth observation services  

In the last 30 years, substantial R&D efforts in the field of Earth Observation have been made 
by  the  EU,  the  European  Space  Agency  (ESA)  and  their  respective  Member  States,  with  a 
view  to  developing  infrastructure  and  pre-operational  Earth  Observation  services.  However, 
many of the existing Earth Observation services in Europe are inadequate due to infrastructure 
gaps and lack of guarantees on their availability in the long term. Copernicus is conceived to 
address this weakness. 
Economic investments at risk 
To date, the total investment made by the EU, ESA and its Member States accounts for 
more than € 3.000 Mio . This massive investment demands that Copernicus be sustained for 
the long term, otherwise almost all past investments would be lost, with the additional risk to 
disrupt national capacities to maintain their investment in space earth observation activities as 
the EU dimension would no longer provide a political and programmatic framework. It is thus 
very likely that the situation would go back to fragmented and uncoordinated space activities 
with remaining gaps, unsolved redundancies, and lack of economies of scale, as they existed 
before the creation of GMES. 

This  risk  of  discontinuity  represents  a  major  concern  not  only  for  end-users  like  public 
authorities,  but  also  for  downstream  service  providers,  as  they  are  unlikely  to  invest 
significantly  in  non-mature,  risky  markets  and  will  face  additional  difficulties  in  raising 
capital. The GIO (GMES Initial Operation) Regulation will be valid until the end of 2013. In 
the meantime a new budget has been proposed by the European Council for GMES, which is 
entering  its  operational  phase  from  the  start  of  2014  under  the  new  name  of  Copernicus. 
These changes require a new Regulation which will propose decisions on, among other topics, 
the  issues  of  programme  governance,  of  ownership  of  the  infrastructure  and  of  budget 

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apportionment between the different components. In addition, a Delegated Act on Copernicus 
Data and Information Policy, to be applicable to the operational phase, has been prepared and 
enshrines the general principle of full, open and free-of-charge access to data and information 
produced  by  the  Copernicus  programme.  It  is  crucial  that  this  ‘upgrade’  of  the  programme 
results in a smooth transition to the new operational phase, especially from the perspective of 
existing  and  potential  users,  with  the  highest  level  of  continuity  and  the  efficient 
apportionment  of  the  budget,  as  well  as  efficient  governance  choices.  The  following 
paragraphs underline the reasons for which these choices are especially significant, sensitive 
or urgent. 

Innovation potential 
It  is  a  cornerstone  of  EU  policy  that  EU-funded  Research  &  Development  initiatives  are 
translated into innovation. Therefore the potential to unleash the innovation capacity linked to 
Copernicus,  which  is  mainly  a  service  related  innovation,  is  absolutely  vital  for  the  pull-
through  of  R&D  investments  into  tangible  benefits  such  as  the  very  real  potential  for 
significant economic growth and jobs, as illustrated by the Impact Analysis model described 
below. 
Autonomy 

Copernicus  gives  the  EU  an  autonomous  capacity  without  which  it  would  have  to  rely  on 
uncoordinated sources from its Member States and on non-European (e.g. US) satellites and 
sources of information, for the implementation of its policies.  

Employment 
Satellite applications systems are the main source of income for the European space industry 
with Earth Observation being one of the two most significant segments in terms of income, 
currently  accounting  for  around  30%  of  the  total  income  for  the  European  space  industry. 
Recent  studies  have  analysed  the  impact  of  Copernicus  data  availability  on  downstream 
markets  development  and  have  added  the  figures  of  downstream  sector  employment  to  the 
figures of jobs development in the space related (upstream) sectors. 
Who are the most affected groups? 
The  Copernicus  user  community  is  large  and  diverse,  spanning  from  international 
stakeholders to European citizens. The most affected groups include: 

–  At European level, Commission services. Many DGs are already using or are planning to 
use Copernicus products (ECHO, ENV, AGRI, MOVE, MARE, REGIO and CLIMA). EU 
agencies are also important users and actors (EEA, EMSA, FRONTEX, EUSC), as well as 
the  European  External  Action  Service  (EEAS),  intergovernmental  European  agencies 
(ECMWF,  EUMETSAT,  EDA,  ESA),  and  European  programmes,  associations  and 
networks (EMEP, EUMETNET, Eurogeographic, Eurogeosurvey, OSPAR, HELCOM). 

–  At  international  level,  Copernicus  is  developing  relationships  with  GEO  partners,  UN 

agencies and international research programmes; 

–  National Authorities such as Ministries of Environment, Transport, Interior, Agriculture, 
Energy, Fisheries, Land Management, Maritime Affairs, and Public Local Authorities, but 
also specific entities such as Civil Protection Authorities and Risk Control Agencies. 

–  A wide range of users in the industry framework (space manufacturing sector and related 
operations,  service  provision,  data  production  and  dissemination  sector,  development  of 
value added services in the downstream sector), and ultimately European citizens who will 
use the final products. 

OBJECTIVES 

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General objectives  

The over-arching objectives of defining, financing, establishing and operating a Copernicus, 
long-term  operational  programme  of  activities  as  described  in  the  proposed  Regulation  on 
establishing the European Earth Observation Programme (Copernicus) are to actively address 
the problems described above. 

•  The Copernicus services aim to enable public policy makers in particular to: 

•  prepare  national,  European,  and  international  legislation,  for  instance  in  the  field  of 

environmental matters, including climate change, 

•  monitor the implementation of this legislation 

•  access  comprehensive  and  accurate  information  concerning  safety  and  security  matters 

(e.g. for border surveillance, civil protection activities, etc). 

Operational policy objectives 

The  shifting  from  a  research  phase  to  an  operational  phase  requires  the  definition  of  the 
budget  apportionment  and  the  re-thinking  of  the  governance  structure  in  the  most  cost-
effective way. The reasons are manifold: research projects are smaller in terms of budget and 
objectives,  limited  in  duration  and  conceived  as  prototypes  of  what  the  whole  Copernicus 
structure could look like; moreover they are often been managed jointly by different services 
of the Commission and by the specific endorsed partners. The chosen budget apportionment 
follows  the  cost-benefits  analyses  summarised  in  the  IA;  the  governance  framework  has  to 
ensure  a  good  project  management  and  implementation,  facing  the  limited  size  of  the 
Copernicus Unit and exploiting non-EC already existing capacities. 

Relevance to other EU policies 

Copernicus  will  deliver  information  to  policy  makers,  public  authorities,  businesses  and 
European citizens. Hence Copernicus has the potential to support all relevant Union policies, 
instruments  and  actions,  where  understanding  the  way  environmental  changes  affect  our 
planet  is  paramount.  Many  examples  exist  of  the  Copernicus  contribution  to  EU  policies  in 
such areas as (detailed in the IA Report): International cooperation policies, Transport policy, 
Environmental  policies,  Humanitarian  aid,  Energy,  Regional  policy,  Climate  change  policy, 
Internal affairs and security, Agriculture and Marine related policies. 

POLICY OPTIONS 

The  Impact  Assessment  analyses  two  different  sets  of  options:  options  on  budget 
apportionment and options on governance. 

A. Options on budget apportionment 

Given  the  amount  of  funding  decided  by  the  European  Council  for  the  Copernicus 
programme,  the  three  scenarios  (options)  described  in  this  section  examine  the  effects  of 
varying  the  amount  apportioned  to  the  three  main  components:  space  infrastructure, 
contribution  to  the  in  situ  infrastructure  and  the  financing  of  the  Services.  The  analysis 
emphasises  the  trade-off  between  investments  in  space  infrastructure  and  services,  while 
keeping  the  expenditure  on  the  in  situ  stable,  given  the  inherent  nature  of  this  component 
(primarily  reliant  on  national  investments).  In  order  to  make  the  analysis  comparable  with 
previous  studies  the  impacts  are  accumulated  until  2030  with  a  notional  assumption 
(consistent with those studies) for a funding level beyond the 2014-2020 MFF. 

A.1 Methodology 

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The  main  analysis  performed  in  2013  in  support  of  this  Impact  Assessment  builds  on  two 
previous  studies  (referenced  and  summarised  in  the  IA).  In  order  to  refine  the  previous 
analyses, the 2013 study examined the extent to which benefits scale in relation to the level of 
apportionment  of  funds  between  the  Space  and  Service  components.  This  allows  a 
comparison of multiple scenarios that all share the same budgetary envelope. 

A.2 Description of options 

The Impact Analysis considered three options/scenarios as follows. 
I - Service Delivery Pull in which a relatively large share of the available budget is used to 
finance  the  provision  of  services  whilst  still  allowing  for  a  level  of  funding  for  the  Space 
component  in  line  with  previous  studies.  This  scenario  tries  to  combine  the  minimum 
investment  in  space  infrastructure  with  the  maximum  possible  and  practical  allocation  to 
services. 
II  –  Intermediate  in  which  the  investment  in  the  Space  component  is  increased,  while  the 
Services component is reduced proportionally. 

III  -  Technology  Driven  which  foresees  the  highest  possible  investment  in  the  Space 
component while the Services component would be reduced to the bare minimum. 

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A.3 Analysis of impacts 

The  budgetary  apportionment  assumptions,  the  financial  impacts  and  the  impact  on 
employment, for each scenario, are presented in the tables below: 

I - Service Delivery Pull 

II - Intermediate 

III - Technology Driven 

Total 

Space 

In Situ 

Services 

Space 

In Situ 

Services  Space 

In Situ 

Services 

€ M 

€ 
Mio 

400 

22 

119 

422 

22 

97 

438 

22 

81 

541 

% 

74% 

4% 

22% 

78% 

4% 

18% 

81% 

4% 

15% 

Budgetary apportionment by scenario (Annual Averages 2014 -2030) 

TOTAL 
 (2014-
2030) 

I - Service Delivery 
Pull 

II - Intermediate 

III - Technology 
Driven 

2014-2020 

Cumulative Benefits 

2021-2030 

Cumulative Benefits 

TOTAL  
(2014-2030) 

Cumulative Benefits 

Downstream Impact in 
2030 

Integrated contribution to 
European GDP 

Integrated BCR 

€ Bn 

% 

: 

6,3 

23,0 

29,4 

1,03 

6,1 

22,1 

28,2 

0,98 

5,9 

20,8 

26,7 

0,95 

0,164% 

0,157% 

0,149% 

3,30 

3,17 

3,01 

Integrated Impact Simulation By Scenario (Undiscounted) 

I - Service Delivery Pull 

II - Intermediate 

III - Technology Driven 

DE 

IE 

T 

DE 

IE 

T 

DE 

IE 

T 

Number of jobs created / maintained by 2030 

TOTAL  
(2014-2030) 

US 

MS 

DS 

T 

2.030 

5.270 

7.300 

2.140 

5.550 

7.690 

2.220 

5.770 

7.980 

710 

1.830 

2.540 

680 

1.750 

2.420 

650 

1.690 

2.340 

9.170 

29.340 

38.510 

8.710 

27.850 

36.550 

8.460 

27.070 

35.530 

11.900 

36.440 

48.330 

11.510 

35.150 

46.650 

11.330 

34.520 

45.840 

Employment Impact by Scenario (Number of jobs created / maintained by 2030)  

(US=Upstream, MS=Midstream, DS=Downstream, DE=Direct Employment, IE=Indirect Employment)

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A.4 Potential for dynamic increase on impacts 

In  order  to  complement  the  above  analysis,  the  so-called  FeliX  model,  a  system  dynamics 
model  and  benefit  simulator,  which  takes  into  account  the  complex  relationships  between 
natural  and  socio-economic  systems  has  been  developed.  The  model  forecasts  substantially 
higher benefits (~8 times, in the long term) than the ‘static’ benefit projections of the present 
study. This is due to the enlarged scope of the FeliX approach and its broad assumptions of 
underlying infrastructure (namely GEOSS, to which Copernicus is expected to constitute the 
EU’s major contribution). The comparison with the FeliX output serves to highlight the strong 
potential  for  higher-order  magnitudes  of  benefits  when  Copernicus  is  viewed  as  part  of  a 
broader system of systems. 

A.5 Conclusion 

The  above  Cost-Benefit  Analysis  shows  that  within  the  budget  foreseen  by  the  European 
Council, Scenario I (Service Delivery Pull) would have the highest benefits and therefore 
would be most cost-effective scenario. 

B. Options on governance 

•  The objective for governance is to assure that all aspects ranging from policy supervision 
to technical implementation are clearly fulfilled by appropriately mandated organisations: 

– 

– 

– 

The  policy  supervision  and  overall  coordination  consists  in  defining  the  policy 
objectives, the high level orientations and content of the programme, the associated 
budget  requirements,  the  main  organisational  and  architecture  principles,  and  the 
overall guidelines for programme implementation.  

Management: the managing authority follows the political guidelines and is in charge 
of  the  management  of  budgets  for  the  implementation  of  tasks.  It  prepares  and 
implements  the  work  programmes  and  supervises  their  implementation.  It  is 
responsible  for  the  preparation  of  administrative  arrangements  to  the  entities  who 
will be in charge of the technical implementation of the tasks;  

Technical  coordination:  is  usually  carried  out  by  the  management  authority,  but  in 
some  cases,  same  tasks  may  be  delegated  to  another  body,  e.g.  preparation  of 
contracts and SLAs, monitoring of implementation, consolidation of user and service 
requirements. 

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– 

The  technical  implementation  is  conducted  by  the  operating  entities  in  charge  of 
specific tasks (construction of satellites, delivery of services). 

•  For  all  possible  options  the  European  Commission  should  remain  politically  responsible. 
The responsibility for the technical implementation of the services must, on the one hand, 
take  into  account  the  invaluable  experiences  gained  during  the  GMES  Initial  Operations 
(and  earlier)  phases  while,  on  the  other  hand,  pay  due  respect  to  the  principles  of  open 
competition.  The  latter  concern,  which  will  probably  be  addressed  via  a  competitive 
process,  should  nevertheless  take  account  of  the  open  competition  that  underpinned  the 
awarding  of  FP7  funded  pre-cursor  services  as  well  as  ensuring  that  principles  of  open 
competition are embraced by the coordinating entities of the services through the selection 
of partners. 

The following table summarises the analysis of some programme governance options. 

Option 

Description 

Comments 

Commission in 
charge of overall 
coordination and 
management  

Delegation of 
the management 
to an existing 
European 
Agency 

Delegation of 
the coordination 
and 
management to 
the European 
Space Agency  

the 

and 

supervision 

The Commission would remain in charge of the 
political 
overall 
coordination  of  the  programme,  including  the 
management of tasks and budget. The technical 
coordination  of  space  infrastructure  would  be 
outsourced  to  competent  bodies  as  will  the 
responsibility  for  the  technical  implementation 
of the services.  

The Commission would remain in charge of the 
overall coordination and political supervision of 
the  programme  but  not  of  its  management. 
Activities,  such  as  the  budget  implementation, 
would be delegated to an external Agency. The 
Commission  would 
in  charge  of 
relationships with partners and users and would 
play  a  political  role  of  supervision  and 
coordination.  The  daily  management  would  be 
entrusted to an Agency more suited to this role 
with more specialized staff, under the control of 
the Commission.  

remain 

budget 

management 

The Commission would no longer be in charge 
of  the  programme.  The  overall  coordination, 
including 
and 
implementation of tasks, would be delegated to 
ESA,  subject  to  the  appropriate  amendment  of 
the 
functional 
arrangements.  The  Commission  would  no 
longer be in charge of the political supervision 
of  the  programme  and  of  relationships  with 
partners and users. 

constituent 

acts 

or 

to 

This  option  would  preserve  the  current 
set up. With the outsourcing of tasks, the 
impact  on  the  EU  resources  would  be 
limited.  The  Commission  would  remain 
involved in the direct management of the 
budget 
including 
programme, 
implementation,  while  concentrating  on 
its  core  business,  namely  the  political 
supervision of the programme. 

the 

This  option  is  in  full  respect  with  the 
separation  principle  between  supervision 
and  management.  Moreover,  operational 
efficiencies could be created if synergies 
with  other  programmes  can  be  realised. 
The delegating tasks to an Agency would 
still have an impact on EU resources. 

The Commission's political control 
over the programme would 
diminish as would its influence in 
defining the objectives and 
requirements. The implementation 
of and access to Copernicus 
infrastructure and services may be 
reduced to a few MS willing to 
continue their investments. It 
would risk becoming a 
technology-driven programme 
rather than a user-driven one. It 
could require amendment to the 
ESA Convention, which would be 
difficult and lengthy. It could risk 
that the services and in situ 

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components may receive a lower 
level of focus. 

Delegation of 
the management 
to a new Agency 

A  new  Agency  would  be  set  up  for  the 
programme  management  of  GMES/Copernicus 
and  the  implementation  of  the  corresponding 
budget. This Agency could be an EU Agency or 
an  international  one.  The  Commission  would 
play a political role of supervision/coordination. 
The  daily  management  would  be  entrusted  to 
the  Agency  but  under  the  control  of  the 
Commission.  

This option is likely to make the 
institutional landscape more 
complex. Synergies would not be 
maximised, with potential risks for 
the implementation of the 
programme. Creating a new entity 
could prove complex and long 
winded. 

MONITORING AND EVALUATION 

Ex-post  evaluation  of  GMES  Preparatory  Action  and  Interim  evaluation  of  GMES  Initial 
Operations have already taken place. Their results are reported in the IA document and have 
been  taken  into  account  to  guide  the  new  policy  initiative.  On-going  monitoring  of 
Copernicus  will  take  place  through  the  User  Forum.  Future  evaluations  will  focus  on  the 
achievement of the operational objectives and the impact of operational services on the Earth 
observation industry in Europe as well as on the user take-up and downstream exploitation. A 
table showing possible indicators is included in the Impact Assessment document. 

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