Meteorology, Meteorological, History

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HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p70.

HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p68.

p69

began to move firmly in the direction of becoming an operational Organisation. It would have been very difficult to move resolutely ahead with a new programme scheduled to last well into the twenty-first century without first deciding strategically whether the Organisation was willing to become involved in operations. Thirdly, EUMETSAT was busy establishing the principle that new programmes should be funded according to a scale of contribution based on Gross National Product (GNP). That principle was applied in the Resolution on the Preparatory Programme. Fourthly, the delegates were debating whether geostationary and polar orbiting satellites should formally be viewed as one programme and decisions about both made jointly.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly from a policy perspective, it was during the MSG programme that EUMETSAT examined in depth the role it wished to play in the space segment of future programmes. This debate began in earnest when the Secretariat requested more staff during the thirteenth Council meeting in November 1990. The staff were needed to help the Secretariat cope with its new programmes (MTP, MSG and EPS). The Council responded by approving 20 of the 24 staff requested and initiating a wide-ranging review of EUMETSAT's role in the ground and space segments of meteorological satellites. EUMETSAT's role in the ground segment was settled in the context of the MTP (see chapters 4 and 5), but the issue of the Organisation's role in the space segment first came to a head in the context of the MSG programme. This was EUMETSAT's and ESA's first truly joint project since the formation of EUMETSAT.

In response to the Council's request for analysis of EUMETSAT's potential roles in European meteorology, the Secretariat prepared a document called the long-Term Staffing Policy, which it presented to the fifteenth Council meeting in June 1991. With respect to the space segment, the main issue that the Secretariat placed before the Council was that of management policy. Four options were outlined:

1: An arrangement similar to that existing between ESA and EUMETSAT for the management of the MOP. Under this arrangement, EUMETSAT channelled funds from the National Meteorological Services to ESA, and ESA managed the programme on EUMETSAT's behalf on a "best effort" basis. The Secretariat argued in its Long-Term Policy document that: "...this [arrangement] has only been feasible with continuous compromise on the part of EUMETSAT. In one sense it is a poor management scheme because ESA has not accepted a contractual relationship but nevertheless limits its activities as if such a relationship did exist."

The arrangement worked, argued the Secretariat, only because most of the major decisions had been taken by the time EUMETSAT was formed. Given the early developmental stages of the MSG programme when many of the significant decisions had still to be made, the document argued that a similar arrangement would not work. The core problem with the arrangement governing relationships between ESA and EUMETSAT for the MOP was that major amounts or money flowed from EUMETSAT's Member States to the Secretariat to ESA and then from ESA to industry. Such an arrangement has the obvious disadvantage that those

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