International cooperation

The European Commission, working closely with the European Space Agency and other stakeholders, will continue to lead on space dialogues with its strategic partners, the United States and Russia. Indeed, in light of the new EU shared competence in space established by the Lisbon Treaty, the Commission will seek to strengthen space cooperation with Russia and the U.S. as well as with emerging space powers. Due to its competence in space matters, the Union's participation in multilateral fora will also be strengthened.

The Commission will aim to ensure a better integration of space into the Union's external policy area. In particular, the Commission wants to ensure that the necessary expertise in the space domain and appropriate space infrastructures make the fullest possible contribution to sustainable development in Africa. Earth observation data are key to addressing the major challenges faced by Africa today, notably the monitoring of global climate change, the management of food and water resources and the fight against desertification.

Significant EU-Africa cooperation activity in space applications is already well underway via the Joint EU-Africa Partnership on Science, Information Society and Space. The EU-Africa Summit of November 2010 approved the 2011-2013 Action Plan for the Joint Africa–EU strategy which expressly refers to the GMES for Africa project and to "EGNOS" in Africa. The latter will extend the EU EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System) infrastructure to the African continent, significantly enhancing aviation safety in Africa. EGNOS will also bring additional benefits to Africa, for example, in the field of land management, mining and railways.