Portugal available to increase funding from European space agency – Observer
The minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Manuel Heitor, said this Friday that Portugal is available to increase by 50% the funding allocated annually to the European Space Agency (ESA), from 20 to 30 million euros.
“Portugal invests around 20 million per year, and then ESA subcontracts Portuguese companies and institutions. Portugal is one of the countries with the highest rate of return. Portugal invests little, but invests well (…) I think Portugal should increase its contribution by around 50%, for around 30 million euros ”, Manuel Heitor told Lusa, on the sidelines of the ESA Intermediate Ministerial Meeting, where 23 representatives of member states sign this Friday the “Manifesto of Matosinhos”.
Manuel Hector said that the decision on the increase in funding should take place in 2023, a year in which “all European countries will decide how much they will dedicate annually to ESA”.
The “Matosinhos Manifesto” is part of a “new agenda” of the European space agency, which, according to Manuel Heitor, intends to become “more modern and oriented towards the future”, as well as towards the citizens.
Until now, ESA has always operated mainly oriented towards large companies that facilitate the transport or development of satellites. The guideline that all member states have agreed upon and discussed over the months is that from now on, ESA must be citizen-oriented ”, noted.
This reorientation of ESA towards the citizens, which will be outlined during the next year based on three “accelerators” and two “inspirers”, will make it possible to respect a “more effective” response, namely, with regard to a set of problems that “affects all “and that can” be solved with high precision information-oriented satellites”.
“There is a consensus today that only through more advanced space systems can we provide the right responses to climate change”, said Manuel Heitor, giving as an example the need to make a sustainable land management based on detailed information on carbon dioxide levels (CO2).
Forest management, prediction of forest fires or floods, very common coastal zone management (where more than 40% of the European population resides) are also other problems for which “greater and more detailed” data availability is needed.
The ESA Intermediate Ministerial Meeting, which brought together this Friday 23 representatives of member states (including Cyprus), in Matosinhos, had as its central theme “Accelerating the Use of Space in Europe”.
The discussion around the priorities identified by the space agency to accelerate the use of space in Europe resulted in the “Matosinhos Manifesto”, a declaration that defines three accelerators to take Europe’s space ambitions to “a next level” and “resize” as a priority of the agency.
The declaration, which Lusa had access to, also confers mandatory power on ESA to, until 2022, develop efforts with member states to obtain new financing.
The three priorities and the two inspiring ones were defined over the months by an advisory group and will be worked on by the ESA until November 2022, data foreseen for the realization of the Paris Ministerial Council and where member states are expected to “express how their positions “on these new ESA goals, revealed Josef Aschbacher.
Until then, an ESA will “study, prepare and anticipate everything that is needed to carry out these accelerators”, emphasizes the director-general of the space company, generating, however, that it is “urgent to act” in the face of the extreme effects of climate change.
Portugal organized the meeting as a State that co-chairs, together with France, the Ministerial Council of ESA, the agency’s governing body, where the ministers of the 22 member countries that oversee space activities have a seat.