Photo credit: ESA

The co-operation between EC and ESA concerns the following stages:

• Joint elaboration and agreement of all GMES policy papers and working documents, e.g. of the proposals on GMES for the Implementation Period (2004-2008);
• Participation of both institutions in GMES groups (Steering Committee, Support Team, joint participation or agreed representation in national events, etc);
• Co-ordination of respective planning for the implementation of programmes contents (EC: thematic projects from the 5th and 6th Framework programmes, cross-cutting assessments; ESA GMES Service element).

In addition, EC and ESA, in their joint document European Strategy for Space, highlighted that GMES, with Galileo, had been chosen as a test case of the implementation periods. Indeed, it was expected that the experience gained on both issues would provide an input to the process of developing a Framework agreement between the two institutions. In November 2003, the ESA Council adopted the Framework Agreement, previously endorsed by the EU Council in October 2003.