Citizen's Contoversy: Does Europe Have an Ambitious Enough Strategy for Outer Space?

European partners such as China have ambitious plans for space exploration. This comes at a time when the United States has downsized its space programme and augmented away from sending manned missions to space for the foreseeable future. Much of Europe’s own ambitions towards space have centred on the development of its own global positioning system, Galileo, and of satellites for environmental and security purposes (GMES). But is such a strategy ambitious enough given the strategic and economic benefits to be had in outer space? When, and if, such projects as Galileo become operational, what further ambitions does the European Union and partners such as the European Space Agency have in space? What are the EU’s own views on the militarisation of space and is there room for Europe to push further international efforts for a code of conduct that limits space debris?

a Citizen’s Controversy  with
Kai-Uwe SCHROGL,  Head of Policies Department, European Space Agency
and
Frank SLIJPER,  Senior Researcher, Transnational Institute

The debate will be moderated by Daniel FIOTT, Researcher at the Institute for European Studies – Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

On Monday 25 February 2013, between 13:00 and 14:30 at the Madariaga – College of Europe Foundation Avenue de la Joyeuse Entrée 14, B-1040 Bruxelles

The debate will be held in English.

To register, please send your name, title and the name of your organisation to info@madariaga.org or by fax to: +32 (0) 2 209 62 11.

For more information, do not hesitate to contact us on: +32 (0) 2 209 62 10.

Participation fee: €10 / Students: €3.

Sandwiches and drinks will be provided from 12:30 onwards.

About the Citizen’s Controversies:                               
The Citizen’s Controversies strive to encourage citizen’s ownership of the European political debate, by contrasting two informed points of view on difficult topics at the heart of the European debate. Sitting in stark contrast with top-down official European discourses, the Citizen’s Controversies give precedence to the exchange of in-depth arguments, expressed outspokenly and beyond polemical confrontation, revealing challenges in concrete terms and leaving it up to the citizen to make up his or her own opinion.
The Citizen's Controversies are held under the Chatham House Rule. A report is then published after agreement with the speakers.
The reports of our Citizen’s Controversies are published on our website www.madariaga.org.