Source: EURLEX
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# 52011DC0831

**COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS on the European Earth monitoring programme (GMES) and its operations (from 2014 onwards) /\* COM/2011/0831 final \*/**

  

1.
Introduction

The European Earth monitoring programme
called GMES was established by the GMES Regulation (EU) No 911/2010[1]
of the European Parliament and the Council. GMES is a flagship of the European
Union space policy[2]
in line with article 189 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
enabling the EU to conduct space related activities. GMES is also one of the
programmes to be delivered under the Europe 2020 strategy for smart,
sustainable and inclusive growth[3]
and it was included in the industrial policy initiative of Europe 2020, given
its benefits to a wide range of Union policies.

In order to respond to ever growing
challenges at global level Europe needs a well-coordinated and reliable Earth
observation system of its own. GMES is that system.

GMES is a long-term programme built on
partnerships between the Union, the Member States, the European Space Agency
(ESA) and other relevant European stakeholders. It is also a programme where
the EU can play a more effective role than individual Member States in
international cooperation through bilateral collaborations with other space
faring nations or participation to global efforts in the field of Earth
Observation (e.g. the Group on Earth Observations).

GMES will deliver a better understanding of
how and in what way our planet may be changing, and how this might influence
our daily lives. GMES will ensure an uninterrupted provision of accurate and
reliable data and information on environmental issues, climate change and
security matters to decision makers in the EU and its Member States. This
information is needed by public authorities in the Member States and regions
who are in charge of the policy conception and implementation. The Commission
also needs this information for evidence based policy making and monitoring. GMES
will also contribute to economic stability and growth by boosting commercial
applications in many different sectors through full and open access to Earth
observation data and information services.

Since 1998 and until 2013, funding has been
allocated to GMES by the EU and the European Space Agency (ESA) mainly for
development activities. In addition, first operational funding has been
allocated for the transition to initial operations in the period 2011-2013. As
of 2014, GMES will enter its full operational phase.

The European Parliament Resolution of 20
November 2008 on the “European Space Policy: how to bring space down to earth” highlighted
the importance of the timely implementation of GMES. In its Communication of 4
April 2011 “Towards a space strategy for the European Union that benefits its
citizens”2, the Commission highlighted the importance of having a
fully operational GMES programme by 2014. At its meeting of 31 May 2011, the
Competitiveness Council invited the Commission to present by the end of 2011 a
proposal for the operations and to clarify the governance of GMES from 2014
onwards.

In its Communication entitled “A Budget for
Europe 2020”[4],
the Commission indicated that given the limits of the EU budget, it was
proposed to fund GMES over 2014-2020 outside the multi-annual financial
framework. Nevertheless, the Commission is still committed to ensuring the
success of GMES, and in this context, it has elaborated this Communication in
view of defining the appropriate governance and long term funding of the GMES
programme from 2014 onwards. This Communication will launch the debate with the
European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee,
and the Committee of the Regions on the future of the GMES programme.

2.
GMES: a user driven Earth monitoring
programme

GMES is an Earth monitoring programme that allows
for the collection of information about planet Earth’s physical, chemical and
biological systems. GMES services provide benefits to a wide range of users, from
local to international levels. They have been designed to meet user requirements:
their scope has been progressively fine-tuned through regular and consistent
interactions with user communities. Under the GMES Regulation, a User Forum has
been established to formalise this mechanism.

GMES provides crucial information for
managing our environment in a more sustainable manner, enhancing the protection
of biodiversity, monitoring and forecasting the state of the oceans and the
atmosphere composition, understanding the drivers and the impacts of climate
change, responding to natural and man-made disasters, supporting the
development policies and strengthening the security of European citizens. It helps to improve decision-making and the
implementation of a wide range of Union policies (transport, agriculture,
environment, energy, regional policy, humanitarian aid, civil protection,
development assistance to third countries …). To address this wide range of
applications, GMES architecture is based on three components: one service
component that delivers information in support of environment and security
policies, and two observation components (space-based and in situ
infrastructures) that provide the data needed for operating the services.

3.
EU added value

In the last thirty years, substantial
R&D efforts in the field of Earth observation have been made in Europe, through
national or international programmes, with a view to developing infrastructure
and applications. However, existing capabilities are insufficient due to
infrastructural gaps and lack of guarantees on their availability in the long
term. Through the establishment of a consistent political framework at European
level for structuring communities of users, consolidating their needs, and organising
the European response, GMES was designed to ensure the provision of required
data and services on a long term and sustainable basis, building on top of existing
assets.

The EU investment aims at filling the
observation gaps, providing access to existing assets and developing
operational services. The European dimension of GMES leads to economies of
scale, facilitates common investment in large infrastructures, fosters
coordination of efforts and observation networks, enables harmonisation and
inter-calibration of data, and provides the necessary impetus for the emergence
of world-class centres of excellence in Europe.

Harmonisation and standardisation of the
geospatial information at European level is a major challenge for the
implementation of a wide range of Union policies. Many areas of environmental
concern – such as climate change mitigation and adaptation policies – require
thinking globally and acting locally. With GMES, the EU is ensuring its
autonomous access to reliable, traceable and sustainable information on
environment and security, contributes through the GEOSS international
initiative (Global Earth Observation System of Systems) to build global
observational datasets and information and increases its influence in
international negotiations and treaties such as the three Rio Conventions, the
post-Kyoto Treaty, and other bilateral or multilateral agreements. GMES is recognised
as the European contribution to building the Global Earth Observation System of
Systems, developed within the framework of the Group on Earth Observations
(GEO).

4.
Costs and benefits

Since its beginning in 1998 the overall
funding allocated to GMES until 2013 by the EU and ESA has reached over € 3.2
billion for the development and initial operations of the services, and of the
space and in situ infrastructures. For the service component, the EU has provided
funding resources of up to € 520 million, and ESA up to € 240 million. For the
space component, ESA made some € 1,650 million available and the EU € 780
million (FP7 and GMES Initial Operation) including access to space data from national
satellites.

After 2013, full continuity of all GMES
components will include their full deployment, maintenance, evolution and upgrades
and will require an estimated budget of € 5 841 million[5] for the period between 2014 and
2020, of which € 1091 million[6]
for the services, € 350 million[7]
for the in situ component and €4 400 million (ESA estimates) for the space
component, including access to contributing missions. GMES has not shown cost
overruns in the past and is not likely to have cost overruns in the future
since it is based on a structure that allows, if necessary, reprioritisation of
the content and objectives of its different components in order to remain
within foreseen costs.

According to a cost benefit analysis[8], GMES is expected to deliver
benefits worth at least twice the costs of investments for the period up to 2020
and four times the costs up to 2030. It represents a huge potential for
economic growth and job creation with the development of innovative services
and commercial applications in the downstream sector.

Earth observation, is a domain where the EU
plays an important role that is recognised worldwide. If the EU investment is
not guaranteed, the level playing field for Member States and European
companies risks being lost to the emerging nations (e.g. Brazil, India, Russia
and China) that are investing heavily in Earth observation.

5.
Funding

On the basis of the Commission Communication
entitled “A Budget for Europe 2020”, the Commission has proposed that GMES should
be funded outside the financial framework from 2014 onwards.

Among the possible GMES funding solutions,
the Commission considered three options: a specific GMES fund (similar to the model
chosen for the European Development Fund), an enhanced cooperation option (which
would involve Member States with a strong interest in the programme) and
finally, the option of industry participation where responsibilities and
funding would be shared with economic actors. In its assessment the Commission
does not favour the latter two options since on one side enhanced cooperation
would put the EU-27 dimension of the programme at risk and, on the other side, the
experience gained with the Galileo project has already shown that attracting
and retaining the private sector will be difficult in the short term and not in
line with the public good dimension of the programme.

It is therefore proposed to set up a
specific GMES fund with financial contributions from all 27 EU Member States
based on their gross national income (GNI). The management of the fund will be
delegated to the Commission. This will require an intergovernmental agreement
between the EU Member States meeting within the Council. An outline of the
agreement is presented in Annex I of this Communication. Management of the fund
will be done under a set of financial rules to be adopted by the Council on the
basis of a proposal from the Commission.

In order to ensure continuity of the
programme, certain provisions of the internal agreement should be applied on a
provisional basis from 1 January 2014 pending ratification by the 27 Member
States.

Following the cost estimate detailed in
chapter 4, the maximum financial envelope needed for the GMES activities
(2014-2020) is € 5 841 million5.

6.
Governance

The governance of the GMES programme
requires political coordination and supervision, management of tasks and
budgets, and technical coordination of the implementation. From 2014 onwards, an
appropriate governance scheme has to be put in place to accommodate the needs
of the operational phase.

6.1.
Political supervision and management

It is considered that the Commission should
remain responsible, on behalf of the Union, for the overall political
coordination, including the negotiation of international agreements, the
consultation of user communities based on the experience gained with the
existing user forum, the adoption of the work programmes, ensuring links with
sectoral policies, defining security and data policy aspects, and international
cooperation aspects. However appropriate arrangements are necessary to
accommodate the increase of programme management activities in the operational
phase, requiring the involvement of specialized staff that are difficult to
recruit within Commission central services. Setting up a new agency in the
allowed time frame is not considered realistic so these tasks could be
delegated to an existing European body. The possibility to delegate the
management of the overall programme to the European Space Agency was discussed
but seems not appropriate for several reasons: first,
ESA is a research & development agency; second, ESA is a space agency
whereas a large part of GMES goes beyond activities in space; and third, taking
into account the fact that GMES should benefit citizens across the EU, the
Commission favours a Community approach that involves all 27 Member States. Consequently, also in order to allow future synergies with the
management of the Galileo programme, certain tasks relating to programme management,
such as evaluation, negotiation and follow up of contracts, could be delegated to
the European Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Agency (GSA).

It is proposed that, under the political
supervision of the Commission, the programme management activities entrusted to
the European GNSS Agency do not include operations and are related to, inter alia, the management of funds allocated to
the programme and the supervision of the implementation of tasks. The
administrative costs of the European GNSS Agency related to the management of the GMES programme should be covered
by the GMES fund mentioned in chapter 5.

6.2.
Technical coordination and implementation of the
operations

In support to the Commission, the technical
coordination of services could be entrusted to European entities having
appropriate knowledge and expertise in related fields. The quality control and
validation of products related to the implementation of sectoral policies will
remain the responsibility of the Commission.

(1)
The operations of the GMES service component would
include:

(a)
Operational activities:

i)        Global systematic/routine activities
for monitoring and forecasting the state of the Earth’s subsystems at regional
and global levels covering in particular marine environment, atmosphere and air
quality, global land and climate change monitoring services;

ii)       Regional/local on-demand activities
covering in particular, emergency management, security and pan-European land
monitoring services.

(b)
Development activities consisting in improving
the quality and performance of existing services, developing new service
elements and fostering the downstream uptake.

The technical coordination of the land
monitoring service may be entrusted to the European Environment Agency (EEA).

The technical coordination of the emergency
management services may be entrusted to the European Emergency Response Centre
(ERC)

The technical coordination of the atmosphere
service may be entrusted to the European Centre for Medium-range Weather
Forecasting (ECMWF).

The technical coordination of the other
services (climate change, marine environment monitoring, and security) is under
preparation in order to ensure timely and high quality services in line with
the specific needs they are meant to cover. For their implementation, the
Commission services and other European entities (for instance the European
Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), the European Union Satellite Centre (EUSC), the
European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External
Borders (FRONTEX) or the European Defence Agency (EDA) could be involved.

(2)
The operations of the GMES space component would
include:

(a)
Operational activities: operations of the
dedicated space infrastructure (i.e. Sentinel missions); access to third party
missions; distribution of data; technical assistance to the Commission for
federating service data requirements, identifying observation gaps,
contributing to the specification of new space missions.

The operational activities of the GMES space
component may be entrusted to:

(1)
The European Space Agency (ESA), ad interim, for
the high resolution imagery observations over land and target-specific areas;

(2)
The European Organisation for the Exploitation
of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) for the systematic and global
observations of the atmosphere and oceans.

(b)
Development activities: design and procurement
of new elements of the space infrastructure; provision of technical support to
the Commission for the translation of service requirements into specifications
of new space missions with the support of space infrastructure operators;
coordination of the development of space activities, including developments
aiming at modernising and complementing the GMES Space Component.

The development activities maybe entrusted to
the European Space Agency, with technical engagement of relevant European
Commission services.

(3)
The operational activities of the GMES in situ
component would include:

(a)
Coordination of the provision of in situ data to
GMES services with ad hoc administrative arrangements with the in situ
operators;

(b)
Coordination of the provision of third party in
situ data at international level;

(c)
Provision of technical assistance for the
translation of GMES service data requirements into specifications of in situ
observation infrastructure and networks;

(d)
Interaction with in-situ operators to promote
consistency of development activities related to the GMES in-situ component.

The technical coordination of the GMES
in-situ component may be entrusted to the European Environment Agency (EEA)
within the terms of its mandate.

For all the three components the implementation
of GMES operations should be entrusted to operating entities through public
procurement schemes, service level agreements or grants where appropriate.

6.3.
Data and information policy

The GMES data and information policy will
continue to build on the principle of a full and open access (subject to legal
and security restrictions) and taking into account existing legislation (e.g.
directive on the re-use of public sector information and INSPIRE) to achieve
the objectives defined in Regulation 911/2010, namely:

(1)
promoting the use and sharing of GMES
information and data;

(2)
strengthening Earth observation markets in Europe,
in particular the downstream sector, with a view to enabling growth and job
creation;

(3)
contributing to the sustainability and
continuity of the provision of GMES data and information;

(4)
supporting the European research, technology and
innovation communities.

7.
Conclusions

The present Communication responds to the request of the
Competitiveness Council of the 31 May 2011 to present by the end of 2011 a
proposal for the operations and a clarification of the governance of GMES in
the period from 2014 to 2020 and it launches the debate
with the other institutions. It
also paves the way for the long-term, sustainable governance and funding of the
GMES programme.

Annex

Outline
for an INTERNAL AGREEMENT[9]

between the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States,
meeting within the Council, on the financing of the European Earth monitoring
programme (GMES) under the multiannual financial framework for the period 2014
to 2020

FINANCIAL RESOURCES of the GMES fund

–
The Member States agree to set up a European
Earth monitoring programme fund, hereinafter referred to as the "GMES
Fund".

–
The GMES Fund shall consist of:

(a)
An amount of up to EUR 5
841 million5 contributed by Member States in compliance with the
contribution keys based on Member States' gross national income (GNI)

(b)
Any other voluntary contributions from other
entities (e.g. a new State acceding to the EU, a third country wishing to
participate to the programme, international organisations, and/or any other voluntary
contributions) may be added to the amount indicated in point a.

–
The GMES Fund shall be available from the entry
into force of the multiannual financial framework.

–
The total amount of resources of the GMES fund
shall cover the period from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2020.

USE OF THE FINANCIAL RESOURCES

–
The GMES fund shall comprise
actions in the following fields:

(a)
Operations of the GMES:

i.        service component (atmosphere
monitoring, climate change monitoring in support of adaptation and mitigation
policies, emergency management, land monitoring, marine environment monitoring,
security)

ii.       space component ensuring
sustainable spaceborne observations for the services areas referred to in point
(i)

iii.      support for in-situ data
collection

iv.      data access

v.       support take-up of services by
users

vi.      measures to ensure the
protection of infrastructure.

(b)
Support measures aiming to cover costs linked to
the programming and implementation of the GMES fund. The resources for support
measures may cover expenditure associated with:

i.        the preparation, follow-up,
monitoring, accounting, audit and evaluation activities directly necessary for
the programming and implementation of the resources of the GMES fund managed by
the Commission;

ii.       the achievement of these objectives,
through development policy activities, studies, meetings, information,
awareness-raising, training and publication activities; and

iii.      any other administrative or
technical assistance expenditure that the Commission may incur for the management
of the GMES fund.

IMPLEMENTATION

–
The agreement will provide for implementation as
concerns programming, management and implementation of the GMES fund, harmonising
as far as possible Union and GMES fund procedures. In this regard, a regulation
will be adopted by the Council on a proposal from the Commission.

–
The agreement will provide for a financial
regulation laying down rules for the establishment and financial implementation
of the resources of the GMES fund, and the presentation and auditing of the
accounts. This regulation will be adopted by the Council on a proposal from the
Commission.

–
The Commission shall be assisted by a committee
(the "GMES Committee").

(a)
The Committee shall consist of Representatives
of the Governments of the Member States; it shall be chaired by a Commission
representative and its secretariat shall be provided by the Commission.

(b)
The GMES Committee shall adopt its rules of
procedure, including its voting rules and tasks, on the basis of a proposal
from the Commission.

(c)
The GMES Committee may meet in specific
configurations to deal with concrete issues, notably those relating to security
(the "Security Board").'

FINAL PROVISIONS

–
Each Member State shall approve this Agreement
in accordance with its own constitutional requirements. The Government of each
Member State shall notify the General Secretariat of the Council of the
European Union when the procedures required for the entry into force of this
Agreement have been completed.

–
This Agreement shall enter into force on the
first day of the second month following the notification of the approval of
this Agreement by the last Member State.

–
This Agreement is concluded for the same
duration as the multiannual financial framework 2014-2020.

[1]               OJ L 276 , 20.10.2010, p. 1.

[2]               COM (2011) 152 final of
04.04.2011

[3]               COM (2010) 2020 03.03.2010

[4]               COM (2011) 500 final of
29.06.2011

[5]               2011 prices

[6]               Figures based on precursor services (projects funded
by FP7)

[7]               Figures based on EEA estimates in the frame of the
FP7-funded GISC project http://gisc.ew.eea.europa.eu/gisc-project

[8]               Figures based on Booz & Company, Cost Benefit
Analysis for GMES, final version, 19 September 2011.

[9]               The Annex here proposed aims to provide only the main
elements and to suggest the main headings for an Internal Agreement, based on
the current European Development Fund-type agreement (OJ L 247, p.32 of
9.9.2006). It does not prejudge the outcome of any discussion with Member State
on a final text.

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