Final Declaration of the Council Meeting at Ministerial Level

1. At the invitation of the French Government, the Council of the European Space Agency met at Ministerial Level in Toulouse on 18, 19 and 20 October 1995. It elected as Chairman, Mr Yvan Ylieff, the Belgian Minister for Science Policy.

2. The meeting was attended by the Ministers and high-level officials representing the Agency's fourteen Member States and Canada (Cooperating State). The Commission of the European Union, Eumetsat and Eutelsat attended as observers.

3. In his general presentation of the objectives to be achieved at the meeting, the Director General underlined the Agency's successes such as the Euromir missions, Ariane-4 launches and the Scientific Programme.

4. The Council welcomed the report made by the Long-term Space Policy Committee, under the Chairmanship of Mr P. Creola (CH), expressed its satisfaction with the perspectives for Europe's future space effort and asked the Committee to continue its reflections on long-term European space policy.

5. After hearing the Director General's overview and proposal on the Agency's Policy and Programmes, Ministers stressed that, despite the financial difficulties the Member States were facing, they had come to Toulouse in order to ensure that Council gave the essential programme commitments required to provide the Agency with a strong and stable framework, thus reinforcing the solidarity among Member States and Europe's leading position in worldwide space activities.
   Ministers emphasised that the achievement of this objective required full financial coverage of the programmes and an improvement in the efficient running of the Agency.

6. The Ministers recognised the excellent quality of the Agency's Scientific Programme, which has put Europe at the forefront of spacefaring nations. In this context, Ministers stressed their readiness to do their utmost to grant the Agency a level of resources sufficient to maintain the quality of the Scientific Programme, notwithstanding the financial difficulties facing the Member States.

7. Council took the following decisions: - adoption of the Level of Resources at a constant level for the period 1996-2000,
   - introduction of the ECU as the Agency's currency.

   Council set up a Working Group to review, within the applicable provisions of the Convention, the Agency's system for calculating contributions to the mandatory programme.

8. On industrial policy, the Ministers demonstrated solidarity with a view to settling industrial policy issues. They noted with satisfaction the efforts already made by certain Member States and encouraged complementary initiatives in order to achieve a satisfactory return for all Member States.

   Ministers underlined the need to improve the effectiveness of relations between the Agency and industry through enhanced procurement procedures. The Council decided to set up a Council Working Group with a remit to review the Agency's industrial policy. The Working Group's findings should be the basis for a proposal to be made by the Director General at a Council session at the end of 1996.

9. With regard to programmes, the Ministers decided in favour of Europe's participation in the development and exploitation of the International Space Station, thereby expressing the firm resolve of Europe to be a Partner in the most significant cooperative project in the field of science and technology undertaken so far.

   At the same time, they instructed the European Partner's spokesman and the Director General to pursue their efforts in the negotiation of amendments to the IGA and the MOU between ESA and NASA in order to meet the European requests concerning offsetting, with Ariane-5/ATV flights and other services, the European share of common operations costs, which are to be contained within an agreed ceiling.

10. The Ministers stressed the importance they attach to European autonomous access to space by adopting the Ariane-5 complementary programmes (Ariane-5 Evolution, Ariane-5 Infrastructure, and Ariane-5 ARTA).

11. The Ministers furthermore endorsed the directions proposed by the Director General to prepare the future activities and programmes of the Agency. In particular, they stressed the importance of the decisions still to be taken on telecommunications and Earth observation.

12. The Ministers incorporated the above decisions and directions by adopting two Resolutions and subscribing five programme Declarations.

13. The Ministers underlined the very positive results achieved at the Council meeting and their immediate effect, which will give the Agency a solid basis for the execution of its programmes and activities.

14. To conclude, the Ministers thanked the French Government for its hospitality and the city of Toulouse for the excellent atmosphere it had helped to create.