I. INTRODUCTION
1. Les conclusions du Conseil sur « Copernicus à horizon 2035 » ont été préparées en vue du
Conseil Compétitivité prévu le 10 juin 2022. La Présidence a proposé ce projet de conclusions
du Conseil pour préparer les principaux axes de réflexion sur l’avenir du programme
Copernicus à horizon 2035 et donner une direction politique aux futurs développements du
programme en se reposant sur le Pacte Vert, la transition numérique et la sécurité afin de
contribuer à une Europe plus résiliente.
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2. Ces conclusions soulignent l’importance des évolutions technologiques et scientifiques à
prendre en compte, y compris le numérique, ainsi que les besoins des utilisateurs et la
complémentarité avec les services commerciaux ainsi que la contribution du programme aux
enjeux de sécurité de l'Union.
II. ETAT DES LIEUX
3. Le groupe Espace a examiné le projet de conclusions lors de six réunions depuis le 18 janvier
2022.
4. Le texte présenté en Annexe de cette Note est identique au texte circulé après le groupe
Espace (doc. 7745/21 +REV3) et qui n’a pas soulevé d’objections de la part des délégations.
Il représente un compromis acceptable qui ouvre la voie à une approbation par le Conseil.
III. CONCLUSION
5. Le Comité des Représentants Permanents est invité à confirmer le texte de compromis
proposé en Annexe de cette Note et à envoyer pour approbation le projet de conclusions au
Conseil (Compétitivité) à sa réunion du 10 juin 2022.
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Draft Council conclusions on Copernicus by 2035
ANNEX
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
RECALLING
A. the Council conclusions on ‘Space solutions for a sustainable Arctic’ of 29 November 20191,
recognising Europe’s remarkable capabilities in Earth observation and their importance for
monitoring and combatting the effects of climate change in the Arctic environment; noting,
however, some remaining gaps in the monitoring capacities and services;
B. the Council conclusions on ‘Space for a sustainable Europe’ of 4 June 20202, underlining that
Earth science and European space data, services and technologies may contribute to the
European Green Deal, and calling on the European Commission and Member States to
facilitate and promote the usage of data and services;
C. the Council conclusions on ‘Space for people in European coastal areas’ of 28 May 20213,
stressing that Copernicus services and applications provide an invaluable contribution to the
green transition and to decision-making and planning tools for the ultimate benefit of citizens;
D. The Council conclusions on ‘New Space for People’ of 28 May 20214 calling on the
Commission and EU Space Programme Agency (EUSPA) to foster, through an action plan,
the uptake of space services by stimulating the adoption of space solutions across a wide
range of EU policies and to increase the competitiveness of the EU downstream space
industry;
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E. the Council conclusions on ‘Forging a climate-resilient Europe – the new EU Strategy on
Adaptation to Climate Change’ of 10 June 20215, stressing in particular the importance of
further developing the Copernicus services for assessing climate change impacts;
I. Introduction: State of play and trends
1. RECALLS that Copernicus is a civil, user-driven operational system, built to respond to
major societal challenges and based on solid scientific expertise, that generates free and open
access data and information; UNDERLINES that, with Copernicus, the Union is a worldwide
leader with the ability to observe, to monitor the Earth and predict changes, in particular by
using modelling, and to serve scientific, institutional and commercial users and that
Copernicus is already delivering manifold tangible results for Europe, for example in climate
services, environmental land, ocean and atmospheric monitoring, for disaster management
and civil security;
2. UNDERLINES that, in order to keep Europe at the forefront, the continuity and continuous
improvement of the Copernicus Services and of the in-situ and space observation capabilities
and data should not only be guaranteed, but also improved upon and extended to new types of
observation capabilities and to new services based on updated scientific and institutional user
requirements and benefitting from the latest technological and scientific knowledge;
3. RECALLS that the vision of Copernicus by 2035 must take into account the main trends in
terms of its core users and should closely follow the political priorities of the Union and its
Member States, environmental challenges and technological advances while striving to
increase its ability to address societal challenges under three pillars: the Green Deal, in
particular the climate challenge, the digital transition, and civil security, together contributing
to a more resilient Europe;
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4. UNDERLINES that Copernicus’s success relies on the expertise of the Commission, the
Member States, and core partners, i.e. all the organisations that bring their high-level know-
how to Copernicus: the European Space Agency, the European Organisation for the
Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, the EU Space Programme Agency, the European
Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Mercator Ocean International, the European
Environmental Agency, the EU Satellite Centre, the European Maritime Safety Agency, and
Frontex, as well as European industry and research organisations; ACKNOWLEDGES that
the governance of Copernicus has played and will continue to have a key role in the success
of the programme; RECALLS that the Copernicus User Forum is the expert body on user
needs and on user uptake; and UNDERLINES the importance of the User Forum’s role along
the entire value chain;
5. CALLS FOR the evolution of Copernicus Services and data by 2035 in order to meet the
Green Deal climate and environmental goals, i.e. the transformation towards sustainable
development, including climate change mitigation and adaptation, in particular through
enhanced CO2 monitoring;
6. RECALLS that Copernicus provides scientifically relevant tools and indicators for assessing
the current state of the climate, causes and trends, but also for long-term projections of
climate change scenarios, thus providing valuable support to policy and decision-makers as
well as economic actors and citizens; and HIGHLIGHTS the key role of Copernicus in
ensuring the availability of critical data, in monitoring and measuring progress in achieving
some of the goals of the Paris Agreement, including support to the estimation of global
stocktake, and in decisions made at subsequent Conferences of the Parties;
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7. UNDERLINES the key role Copernicus must play in supporting public decisions and actions,
particularly in areas such as biodiversity and ecosystems, health as part of a ‘one health’
approach, support to clean energy, the fight against pollution, decarbonisation of economy
and society, urban sustainability, transport and smart mobility, food and water resources,
cryosphere, sustainable ocean management, coastal areas, maritime surveillance, forestry,
sustainable agriculture, natural resources, cultural heritage, desertification, risk management
and disaster management such as hydro- or geohazards;
8. UNDERLINES the importance of taking into account the following new trends in order to
maximise their benefits for the Copernicus programme:
i. On technologies:
– Additional Earth observations through new measurements and instruments;
– Additional Earth observations through new architectures and new business
models, especially public or commercial constellations and New Space
opportunities;
ii. On science:
– The impact of the evolution of computing science on numerical models of the
Earth system in all its components, including the approach to coupled modelling
systems and ensembles;
iii. On digital:
– The digital transformation, including high performance computing, big data
analytics, artificial intelligence, data fusion and visualisation, data long-term
preservation, right up to the concept of digital twinning;
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9. RECALLS the expectation of Member States that EU emergency management and security
service capabilities in support of a more resilient Europe be developed; and HIGHLIGHTS
the need to strengthen the security Service portfolio with developments such as more early
warning and risk assessment capabilities for the monitoring and analysis of potential
population displacement due to climate change impacts;
10. RECALLS the long-standing need for more reactivity and more precision in data acquisition
and distribution, including through higher flexibility and timeliness in the programming of
satellites over the requested area;
11. RECALLS that Copernicus user uptake is a priority and that the services, data and
information must be user-friendly, relevant to societal, economic and environmental needs
and useful first for public authorities, but also for scientific, economic actors and citizens;
12. UNDERLINES that easy and flexible access to and use of data, including all data necessary
for Copernicus Services, must be facilitated and that Copernicus can contribute to the end-to-
end development of a European value chain, including fostering the downstream sector, by
implementing and promoting user-friendly and, as far as possible and where appropriate,
energy efficient European data and information access platforms;
II. Recommendations
13. CONFIRMS Copernicus as a civil, operational, user-focused EU-led programme in support of
the Green Deal, the digital transition and civil security, together contributing to a more
resilient Europe; RECOMMENDS keeping the priority of climate change, supporting
mitigation and adaptation policies; and RECOMMENDS that the free, full and open data
policy in respect of Copernicus is to be maintained;
14. CALLS FOR the long-term enhanced continuity of current space and in situ observations and
Services;
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15. URGES the implementation of priorities for Copernicus that have not yet been implemented,
including the Sentinels Next Generation and the six Copernicus Expansion missions and the
dedicated support to policy areas such as Arctic, coastal areas, cultural heritage,
environmental compliance, taking into account the security of the space and ground segment
and the integrity of the data; HIGHLIGHTS the need to address new services such as
agriculture, food and water security; and RECOMMENDS preparing the long term evolution
of the Sentinel family, based on updated user requirements;
16. RECOMMENDS that responses to main user requirements should be clearly focused on the
provision of usable and uncorrupted information, and should be defined by the Commission in
a transparent and structured dialogue in coordination with the Copernicus User Forum;
17. CALLS FOR allocating adequate funds to research and development and operations of
Copernicus Services to ensure the preparation of new services and new projects which take
advantage of future data, and their better integration, including with other sources, in order to
maintain the state-of-the-art capacity and the international competitiveness of Copernicus; and
HIGHLIGHTS that increased attention must be paid to the sustainability of the Earth
observation infrastructure along the value chain and to monitoring its environmental footprint;
18. HIGHLIGHTS that the interface with the Digital Europe programme should be followed
carefully, including the Destination Earth initiative;
19. RECOMMENDS strengthening the hybrid Copernicus space segment driven by core user
requirements and taking into account the advice and recommendations of the Copernicus User
Forum; RECOMMENDS defining which capabilities and services should be reinforced in the
‘Sentinel architecture’ in order to guarantee autonomy and resilience; and CALLS ON the
Commission to assess how far the Sentinel missions, as the backbone of the Copernicus
infrastructure, could be complemented with additional European public and/or commercial
capacities, paying particular attention to New Space solutions;
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20. RECOMMENDS, as a way forward, to assess how the hybrid Copernicus space segment
could benefit from additional capabilities, innovations and efficiency gains in Earth
observation, including flexible and dynamic tasking, more frequent revisits, as well as higher
resolution images, to support near real-time Copernicus Services in order to meet constantly
changing demands, while taking into account the risks to EU security interests;
21. HIGHLIGHTS the need to ensure the calibration and validation of satellite data and
information products, using reliable high quality in situ data, with documented quality, access
to analysis ready data, the fusion of data from all sources and different resolutions, as well as
the rapid availability of high-quality data in order to maximise their use;
22. SUPPORTS the ambition of offering advanced public data and products to foster downstream
commercial activities; and CALLS ON the Commission to ensure that Copernicus can play an
important role for EU industry by offering contracts for obtaining data of a minimum standard
on the basis of user needs, data quality and scientific relevance;
23. RECOMMENDS stepping up the efforts on the implementation of policies to foster the use of
Copernicus data in public services, at European and national levels, in non-space sectors, and
remove barriers to policies and regulations that hinder their use where necessary;
24. CONSIDERS that international cooperation on Earth observations is essential to effectively
achieve international common policy objectives; and UNDERLINES the need for reciprocity
in agreements and administrative arrangements negotiated with international partners and the
need to reach a balance between EU autonomy and cooperation, including through more
effective interfaces with international Earth observation groups and institutions;
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25. On the user uptake:
a. RECOMMENDS the active participation and the informed opinion of the Copernicus
User Forum, based in particular on feedback from users and Member States, for the
development of the Services, including space data and products, as well as for the
acquisition of new data, the use of additional information and for the user uptake of
Copernicus;
b. UNDERLINES the importance of implementing at least one Copernicus data and
information access platform associated with computing resources to support economic
ecosystems and research; and of networking national data platforms in order to ensure a
sustainable and independent European access to data and information products;
c. RECOMMENDS to the Commission, together with Copernicus entrusted entities,
including EUSPA, and the involvement of Member States, to define a coherent user
uptake strategy and the associated action plan by mid-2023 in order to support EU and
national policies and while targeting socio-economic value creation enabled by the EU
space programme, in particular:
i. the development of solutions to make the Copernicus data and products easier to
use for evidence-based decisions, especially for decision-makers and institutions
in charge of public policies;
ii. the need to develop cross-cutting and multi-disciplinary services required for user
uptake development including by non-space actors;
iii. the cross-fertilisation between various components of the EU space programme
such as Galileo and Copernicus;
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iv. the support to national user forums, Copernicus relays and the Copernicus
Academy and other nationally-driven initiatives making good use of existing EU
instruments, in order to expand user uptake actions across Member States with the
support of the entrusted entities, taking advantage of the Copernicus User Forum’s
recommendations;
v. the opportunity to acquire the skills to develop user uptake and contribute to
reducing the space and digital divide across Europe, in particular through
capacity-building in all Member States and training of national professionals,
entrepreneurs and academics;
vi. the development of targeted measures to enhance capacity across Member States
with an emerging space industry, support the New Space ecosystem and the
downstream sector.
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