Meteorology, Meteorological, History

An IGO
monit-
oring
weather and
climate
change

HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p32.

HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p30.

p31.

agreed to form EUMETSAT. This Organisation would assume financial responsibility for three satellites in the MOP series together with ground segment operations. Payment would be via a new Programme Board for operational satellite meteorology which would run the MOP from within ESA until EUMETSAT's Convention was ratified. The participants negotiated their scales of contribution, and by the time of the plenipotentiary conference for signing the Convention in Geneva in May 1983, 12 nations had pledged subscriptions amounting to 85.03 per cent of the total.

The task of agreeing how the Member States, including four new participants, would bring the subscriptions to 100 per cent was deferred to the new EUMETSAT Council. This Council, comprising delegates from the National Meteorological Services, would also decide where the headquarters would be located and would appoint the first Director.

The first Council meetings

When Mohr had made his welcoming speech to the Council and the first Chairman, Dr. Andre Junod, then Director of the Swiss Meteorological Institute, had been elected, delegates turned to business. Where would EUMETSAT's headquarters be situated? Germany, says Mohr, was determined to host the new Organisation, and had prepared carefully for the Council meeting. The German delegation included linguists who could speak to participants in their own language. Mohr himself, who was one of two candidates - the other was John Morgan - for the job of EUMETSAT's first Director, was ready to stand down as part of the negotiating strategy.

The delegation had decided, too, just how much more it was willing to spend on MOP to secure the role of host. This extra would reduce the structural deficit and thus the extra that each participant would have to pay to make up the shortfall.

Three locations were proposed for EUMETSAT's headquarters: Strasbourg in France, Darmstadt in Germany and Reading in the UK. Each could make a strong technical case. Politically, the UK was an outsider. When the first round of votes was cast, only one went to the UK.

France received eight votes (representing 45.83 per cent of contributions) and Germany won five votes (representing 25.10 per cent of the contributions). The aim was for one candidate to reach ten votes representing a minimum of 56.88 per cent. During the next round, the UK backed Germany, after Tillmann Mohr withdrew his candidature for the post of Director, boosting Germany's vote to six (with 39.50 per cent of the contributions).

After this, when the small contributions were shifting sides, it was not always clear who was voting for whom. The delegates had their calculators out, trying to decide which delegation to lobby. Before the meeting, Germany had announced its willingness to increase its contribution to the MOP. One delegate was indignant and, refusing to be bought, cast his vote for France. Then before the fourth and final round, France increased its contribution. The delegate threw up his hands and declared that if he was to be bought, he might as well go to the highest bidder. In truth, it was pretty clear

SEE ALSO| |

1. Meteorologists shed political shackles, a review of Declan Murphy's history of the first 25 years of EUMETSAT (2011), by Helen Gavaghan.

2. An interview in 2010 with Dr Tillman Mohr, a special advisor to the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organisation, in Science, People & Politics.

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Contents

Preface

Foreword

Introduction

Ch.1

Ch.2

Ch.3

Ch.4

Ch.5

Ch.6

Ch.7

Ch.8

The History of EUMETSAT is available in English and French from EUMETSAT©.
First printed 2001. ISBN 92-9110-040-4

Eumetsat meteorology meteorological artificial satellites
European Space Agency weather climate policy politics history