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EU Presidency Statement - Peaceful uses of outer space

Mr. Chairman,

I have the honour to take the floor on behalf of the European Union. The Central and Eastern European countries associated with the European Union (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia), the other associated countries (Cyprus, Malta) and also the EFTA countries that are members of the European Economic Area (Norway) align themselves with this statement.

The European Union is pursuing an outer space policy of using scientific projects to develop knowledge, innovation and applications in the service of society. It places this concern at the heart of its sectoral strategies to be implemented in the fields of telecommunications, the management of our environment and knowledge of the universe.

To that end Europe began in June 1999 to establish an autonomous civilian satellite navigation system which should under normal circumstances be completed by the end of the year. This is the Galileo system, which will be compatible and interoperable with the GPS. Galileo will offer various services, including applications available to the general public.

The Global Monitoring for Environment and Security system (GMES) is also very important to the European Union. It should contribute to better knowledge and mastery of climate change or the degradation of natural resources and promote the prevention and management of natural and industrial disasters.

The development of space applications is likewise a concern of developing countries, strongly expressed at the Unispace III Conference in Vienna last year. The European Union welcomes the report adopted at the end of this conference as being a balanced document containing recommendations which are realistic, practical and incorporable into research or development programmes.

The main subjects on which measures should be taken are the protection of the terrestrial environment and resource management; the security, development and well-being of mankind; the development of scientific knowledge of outer space and the protection of the outer space environment; the strengthening of education and training; and the promotion of international cooperation. This programme is vast and requires the mobilisation of all energies so that the developing countries can fully benefit from it.

Mr Chairman,

At its meeting last June the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space approved the organisation under its own responsibility of greater cooperation with non-governmental organisations and industrialists in order to accelerate concrete measures which could be adopted to implement these recommendations according to their degree of importance. The Committee also approved the action plan proposed by the Office for Outer Space Affairs as mentioned in paragraph 72 of its report.

The European Union approves of this decision. It will support the efforts undertaken to make significant progress and recommends that they be put to the United Nations Secretary-General in order to bolster their implementation. The European Union considers that outer space activities should be conducted with two fundamental principles in mind:

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• outer space technologies must contribute to economic, social and cultural development while preserving the terrestrial and outer space environment;
  
  
• access to outer space should be regulated equitably, which requires the specific needs of the developing countries to be taken into account and international cooperation to be reinforced. If nothing is done, given that the next few decades will see strong demographic growth, the world will have to cope with greater disparity between the industrialised and developing countries in the use of technological advances.

This last remark highlights the need for ethical reflection. The European Union wants ethical considerations to be more prominent in the development of scientific and technical progress. It welcomes the holding in Vienna next year, alongside the meeting of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and under its responsibility of a colloquium on the human dimension of outer space activities, which will be an occasion to tackle this question.

In 1997, at its 29th session, the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation asked that body to think about certain situations likely to present a risk to society because of the progress of science and technology. In close collaboration with the European Space Agency and various eminent persons, basic work on this matter was carried out in the field of outer space. It resulted in the formulation of three requirements, defended in the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space by the European States on the Committee:

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• free access to outer space should be observed, as it is the province of mankind as a whole;
  
  
• nothing should obstruct the observation of the universe by astrophysicists;
  
  
• outer space, as a bearer of communication between human beings, must be used with due regard for fundamental human rights and freedoms.

The use of space technologies already involves risks which the European Union considers should be subject to more rigorous management. There are in particular no available means of eliminating the serious danger presented by space debris. As things stand, only preventive measures can be considered, such as putting satellites into geostationary orbit so that they arrive at the end of their life in a graveyard orbit several hundred kilometres above it; eliminating the risks of explosion in orbit of the upper stages of launchers; reducing the time spent in orbit. These should be implemented as a matter of urgency.

However, these measures come with a cost, and the maintenance of fair competition requires that the rules, which must be adopted as soon as possible, be binding on all parties. The European Union requests that the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space be instructed forthwith to prepare a framework such that, at ethical and legal level, guaranteed access is established for all and the mortgaging of possibilities of access for future generations is avoided.

The admittedly lower probability of damage to the environment is nonetheless worrying. This essentially concerns the risks to populations and the environment of the re-entry of objects from space if they are subject to no control. More specifically concerning nuclear energy sources in outer space, work has been under way for several years within the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. This should enable progress to be made on this matter very shortly.

Mr Chairman,

The European Union would like to see a solution to the resources problem of the Office of Outer Space Affairs, which operates under the aegis of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Over the years we have demanded more and more from that Office without any adjustment of its human and financial resources and although its budget for the last two-year period was reduced. This matter should be addressed when budgetary resources are examined.

Thank you, Mr Chairman.

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