Meteorology, Meteorological, History

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HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p71

HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p69.

p70

supplying the cash have limited control over how it is spent.

2: Joint ESA-EUMETSAT programmes. This option would place total management responsibility under a joint programme board that would have the delegated authority to decide how the space segment money was spent. Under this arrangement, the Councils of ESA and EUMETSAT would cede authority to a new body.

3: Fully independent EUMETSAT programmes. This arrangement envisaged that total management and technical responsibility would lie with EUMETSAT, and, like EUTELSAT and INMARSAT, the Organisation would have nearly all the technical resources it needed in-house.

4: EUMETSAT programme management with external support. Under this option, as interpreted by the Long-Term Staffing Policy, EUMETSAT would be the Programme Manager and place all contracts with industry. It would be responsible for the overall coordination of the space and ground segments and could place contracts in accordance with EUMETSAT's priorities and would not need to follow ESA's financial rules. This option envisaged that ESA or another organisation could be asked to manage the space segment.

The Secretariat recommended the fourth option. During the debate following presentation of this document, the EUMETSAT Council Chairman invited the observer from ESA - Regis Tessier, one of the original five to evaluate the French Meteosat for Europeanisation - to comment on the idea. Tessier emphasised that ESA was a research and development organisation not a contractor and that the Agency envisaged future cooperation with EUMETSAT on the basis of either co-financing the MSG or involvement in the development as a consultant.

During the meeting delegates also expressed their views of the Secretariat's recommendation. Germany, the UK and Switzerland were in favour of the general philosophy that EUMETSAT should have overall control of programme management. Their views were closest to the idea that EUMETSAT should have responsibility for its own programmes and have external support (see option 4 in previous column). This matter was eventually to have a direct impact on the UK contribution to the ESA element of the programme, says EUMETSAT's first Director John Morgan, because, among other things, the UK felt that the final programme did not give EUMETSAT sufficient overall control.

The Netherlands and Italy considered that development of the first flight model of the new series should be entrusted to ESA. France had not yet decided on its policy, but was leaning more toward the views expressed by Germany, the UK and Switzerland.

Although one important issue from EUMETSAT's perspective was the nature and degree of control the Organisation would have over its programmes, there was in addition an important subtext. This subtext was present during the evolution of EPS and was partly behind the debate and timing of the acceptance of amendments to the Convention. The issue is, of course, that EUMETSAT and ESA have different industrial policies. Knowledge of this fact is important to understanding some of the unwritten debate in the history of the two organisations.

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.

eChapter| |TOP

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