Macron and Putin table meeting mocked by hosts
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Mr Macron, who recently took over the rotating EU presidency, pledged to make the bloc a sovereing power in space. The French President said: “Our presidency [of the EU] has been placed with, at its core, European sovereingty. This means that as much as possible in all areas our union should have the abulity to define her own policies, cooperating with all those she chooses to cooperate with but wihtout depending ever on choices made by others.
“The sovereignty of all sovereingty is that of space.
“If you do not control space, you cannot control technology, interenet access, satellite navigation, all of them basically depend on space.”
But Mr Macron warned that space has become a “field for conflict”.
He said: “The spacial area has become also a new field for conflict. There is not full power or autonomy without managing space, without which you can’t conquer new frontiers or even control your own.”
But when the French President listed off the programmes that the ESA should be proud of, he mentioned the ones the UK was no longer a part of despite Britain being a part of the ESA.
Mr Macron said: “We have some of the best operational programmes in the world.
“Copernicus, which does Earth observation data processing, Galileo with 22 satellites and two billion linked up peices of equipment that enable an even more precise than GPS location system. But these are just two and they become indespensible amongst many others.”
While the UK’s association to EU programmes including Copernicus was agreed in December 2020, Britain’s participation has been blocked over Brexit disputes with the bloc.
And Britain was also kicked out of Galileo following its departure from the EU.
This is a breaking story. More to follow.
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