Annexes to COM(2011)831 - European Earth monitoring programme (GMES) and its operations (from 2014 onwards) - Main contents
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| dossier | COM(2011)831 - European Earth monitoring programme (GMES) and its operations (from 2014 onwards). |
|---|---|
| document | COM(2011)831  |
| date | November 30, 2011 |
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.