A communication outlining the policy was released on 26 April 2007 which set out orientations for:
Coordinating more effective civil space programmes between ESA, EU and their respective Member States to ensure value for money and eliminate unnecessary duplication, thus meeting shared European needs.
Developing and exploiting European space applications such as GALILEO and GMES and satellite communication applications.
Preserving EU autonomous access to space.
Increasing synergy between defense and civil space programmes and technologies and pursue, in particular, interoperability of civil/military systems.
Ensuring that space policy is coherent with, and supports the EU's external relationships.
The European Union has already started work on a project to create the Galileo positioning system, to break dependence on the United States GPS system. This is in cooperation with ESA as well as other countries.
Copernicus Programme
Copernicus is a European system for monitoring the Earth and consists of earth observation satellites and in situ sensors. The program provides services in the thematic areas of land, marine, atmosphere, climate change, emergency management, and security
Launch systems
The policy emphasizes the importance for Europe to maintain independent, reliable and cost-effective access to space through European launch systems, without mentioning any specifically by name. The policy statement affirms support for the "EC-ESA Framework Agreement" and the resolution on the evolution of the European launcher sector adopted in 2005.
SST
The space surveillance and tracking support framework detects and warns against possible satellite collisions in space, and monitors space debris re-entering Earth's atmosphere.
The Horizon 2020 programme is the source of funding for a variety of projects, such as:
Monitoring agricultural sustainability with and projects
Analyzing the chemical composition of Earth's oceans:
Supporting urban planners in the coordination of city resources:
EGNOS
The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service provides navigational assistance to aviation, maritime and land-based users over most of Europe. The system supplements data from GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo by monitoring and making corrections to their positioning data
ISS
The policy reaffirms a continuing European commitment to the International Space Station and describes ESA participation in future international exploration programmes as being important.
Science and technology
The policy includes the goal of maintaining programmes that give Europe a leading role in selected areas of science. It also calls for the development of technologies that allow European industry to avoid dependency on international suppliers.
jobs and industrial growth: The EU has over 230,000 jobs in the space sector, it has a worth of over €50 billion to the EU economy
Ensuring EU autonomy: By having access to space, Europe can stay competitive in business, in security, and form a stronger presence on the global stage.
Although Britain is planning to withdraw its membership in the European Union, it still plans on keeping its membership in the European Space Agency. Since members of the European Space Agency contribute funding based on percentage of GDP, the UK is one of the larger members of the Space Agency and provides a significant amount of funding. If Britain maintains its membership in the European Space Agency after leaving the European Union, it is expected they will pay an appropriate amount for membership, possibly contributing more than a billion euros to the program's overall funding.
Link between ESA and EU
The ESA is an independent space agency and not under the jurisdiction of the European Union, although they have common goals, share funding, and work together often. The first meeting of the two groups occurred on 22 May 2007 and the agencies have met multiple times since then The most recent meeting occurred in December 2016, The two groups signed a joint statement on their shared vision and commitment to the future of European space travel and reaffirmed their intentions to cooperate in the future
