The EU is a strong player in the global market...
The EU is a strong player in the global market for telecommunication satellites and services but faces growing competition from emerging industries in countries such as China and India, the European Commission said Thursday. To address the challenges, it proposed…
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a new industrial policy for the space sector (http://bit.ly/VQd9dZ) and a surveillance and tracking system to avoid satellite collisions. The European space industry differs from its chief rivals because its budget is smaller, it relies more on commercial sales, the part of military expenses is smaller, and synergies between civil and defense sectors are less well developed, the EC said. In addition, unlike the U.S., Europe’s downstream satellite navigation and earth observation markets are only emerging. Among other challenges the European space industry faces are higher subsidies in other countries, and the fact that the satellite communication industry accounts for almost 60 percent of Europe’s space manufacturing sector, it said. While Europe has a world-class satellite communication sector, it’s facing increasing global competition as well as technical and political roadblocks due to scarcity of radio spectrum, it said. Moreover, Europe needs to position itself in the emerging markets for navigation and Earth observation, it said. The EC proposed several actions to raise Europe’s game: (1) Legislation at the EU and national level that addresses legal issues such as insurance obligations, sanctions, and environmental issues. (2) Monitoring the impact on the space industry of the export control system for dual-use goods. (3) Investigating how best to take into account future spectrum needs for satellite communications, and preparing to defend EU interests at the next ITU World Radiocommunication Conference. (4) Pursuing development of European space standards. (5) Ensuring that the specificities of the space industry are taken into account in trade negotiations, to promote a level playing field. (6) Supporting research and innovation to foster development of satellite navigation applications using Galileo. The EC also said it wants to make sure that space data from existing and future European missions is used extensively by scientists, the public and the commercial domain. It also proposed a space surveillance and tracking service to protect space infrastructures.