Delegation for Relations with Switzerland and Norway and to the EU–Iceland Joint Parliamentary Committee and the EEA Joint Parliamentary Committee – 66th EEA JPC Meeting
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DELEGATIONS European Parliament
Orlaith Mc Mahon
This partnership has never been more important than it is now, and not only in terms of size and trade volumes. I believe we all share the assessment of our EEA cooperation as a key factor in support of our continuous development, long-term shared prosperity, peace, and stability. In the current geopolitical context, we continue to stand together, defending our common values such as democracy, rule of law, and commitment to an international rules-based order, in solidarity and in unity. In this regard, I would also like to pay tribute to this Joint Parliamentary Committee, a unique democratic forum for dialogue and debate that contributes to the excellent relations between the EU and the EEA EFTA states. Let me now turn to the work of the European Economic Area Council.
As you know, the next meeting of the EEA Council will take place on the 17th of November in Brussels. Our ministers will have the opportunity to discuss the various challenges that we are all facing in a continuous complex international environment. The EEA Council will also discuss the importance of a well-functioning internal market and its future, underscoring the central role of the EEA agreement as a solid basis for our strong and broad relationship. Hopefully, the EEA Council will also adopt the EEA Council conclusions, which would send a strong and important signal of unity. The incorporation of the EEA-relevant EU acts should also be touched upon to acknowledge the work of the Joint Committee in ensuring the continued successful operation and good functioning of the EEA agreement.
I would like to highlight some important developments that have taken place since our latest EEA Council in May 2026. We would like to welcome the incorporation of a number of important acts into the EEA Agreement, most notably the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, including the decision on the financial contributions of the EEA EFTA states towards the CBAM mechanism and the procedural state aid regulation, together with two related acts. We also welcome the incorporation of further acts in areas such as food safety, financial services, and transport. We call for increased efforts to conclude discussions on some important pending legislations. The presidency would like to specifically highlight the importance of a level playing field and mention the energy backlog as well as the oldest pending acts in the field of genetically modified food and feed.
In this context, we recall the obligation under the EEA Agreement to ensure as far as possible the simultaneous application of the acquis, which includes the timely fulfillment of constitutional requirements. Furthermore, we would like to welcome the continued joint determination to incorporate the relevant EU acquis into the EEA Agreement. That said, efforts to reduce the existing backlog and incorporate new acts need to intensify in order to ensure good functioning of the EEA Agreement and avoid fragmentation of our internal market with the same rules across the whole EEA. We welcome the contribution of the EEA EFTA states through the EEA and Norwegian financial mechanisms as part of the overall balance of rights and obligations and the entry into force of agreements for the period May 2021 to April 2028. We underline the need to swiftly conclude bilateral memoranda of understanding with all beneficiary member states in order to ensure effective and timely implementation of the funds.
Against this background of intense, close, and fruitful cooperation, I would like to conclude by wishing you all a successful meeting and by thanking you on behalf of the Irish presidency for your valuable and constant support to the European Economic Area. Thank you, agus go raibh maith agaibh.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much. Then I now invite Ambassador Pascal Schafhauser, EFTA Chair of the EEA Joint Committee representing the EFTA Chair of the EEA Council. Please, you have the floor.
Pascal Schafhauser
Thank you, dear co-chairs, distinguished members of parliament, dear colleagues. It's my great pleasure to be here with you today and discuss recent developments shaping our EEA cooperation. I would like to start by thanking Nicola and the colleagues at the European Commission for their cooperation on the day-to-day management of the EEA Agreement and continued work on the backlog. We also appreciate the good work with Irish presidency and the chair of the EFTA working party, Orla. We look forward to next month's EEA Council where our ministers will discuss the functioning of the EEA Agreement and, during the orientation debate, likely how to harness digitalization for competitiveness and growth in the internal market.
Also, during the margins of the EEA Council, we'll have a ministerial side event where we aim to discuss our shared European values. Now, since our last meeting, global uncertainty and fragmentation have continued to grow. In these increasingly choppy geopolitical waters, the internal market is more valuable than ever, offering a vital safe harbor for stability and predictability for all 30 EEA states. The EFTA states remain among the EU's most trusted partners in building a future-proof internal market. As the internal market continues to evolve, ensuring its smooth functioning and homogeneity remains our utmost priority.
The EFTA states share the EU's ambition to strengthen competitiveness, economic security, and climate action, and we are committed to advancing these goals. We welcome the joint One Europe, One Market roadmap by the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, and the European Commission, and are following this process closely. And we stand ready to support you. Together, we must anticipate future challenges that define Europe's resilience, including in the field of AI, cybersecurity, and digitalization. Crucially, approaches to emerging challenges should enhance, not undermine, the foundation of our partnership, a level playing field with the full participation of all 30 EEA states.
Delivering on that level playing field starts with timely incorporation. Addressing the backlog is therefore a key priority of our three states, with work ongoing to improve procedures, prioritize time-sensitive and important files, and keep the number of outstanding constitutional requirements as low as possible. National initiatives in Norway and Iceland demonstrate the firm commitment to addressing these issues further. Over the last few months, Iceland has established a high-level interministerial EEA coordination committee alongside simplified national procedures on fast-track files. Similarly, Norway has already begun implementing its EEA project with measures to improve interministerial cooperation, resource use, and processing times.
Speaker 7
Further measures are underway, including at EFTA level, where the expanded fast-track procedure has already proven effective. And these efforts are already yielding first results. Following this Friday's Joint Committee meeting, we will have incorporated 497 acts this year, including several long-outstanding files in energy and statistics and our first two cross-sectoral acts, the so-called CBAM and the EDIP regulation. Such cross-sectoral EU legislation often combines provisions that clearly fall within the scope of the EEA Agreement with others whose EEA relevance is less obvious, if at all. Each act must therefore be assessed on its own merits to determine whether or which elements are necessary for the legislation, the internal market, and the EEA to function properly.
Pascal Schafhauser
In some cases, this might require incorporation of elements from EU policy areas not traditionally associated with the EEA Agreement, such as customs or external trade. In others, such elements may not be needed. This reflects a consistent assessment of the legal and substantive relevance of the internal market of each individual act. It also reflects the EU's increased use of the full range of its policy instruments in legislation and the need to establish, in each concrete case, what is required to preserve the proper functioning and homogeneity of the internal market and the EEA. Awareness, effective procedures, and good cooperation between everyone involved are key for a successful and timely incorporation.
Timely incorporation, indeed, is one part of the equation. Shaping policy is another. Since our last meeting, the EFTA states have submitted four EEA EFTA comments. One on the Industrial Accelerator Act, one on Horizon Europe, one on digital leadership, and one on health emergency preparedness, and we have engaged productively with the Commission in this regard. Decision shaping remains one of our most important instruments.
We will therefore continue to pursue earlier engagement in the policy process and the timely involvement of national parliaments. Our partnership also delivers beyond the regulatory framework. The EEA and Norway financial mechanisms continue to address economic and social disparities across Europe. By strengthening opportunity and resilience across our European partners, we contribute to a level playing field within the internal market.
And I'm happy to report that we will sign the last outstanding memorandum of understanding with Hungary next Monday, which means the 15th and final framework agreement of the grants in the current period will then be in place. Dear colleagues, against this shifting political and economic landscape in Europe and beyond, the EEA Agreement provides something increasingly valuable and rare: stability, predictability, and a framework for acting together to address European challenges. Our task is clear: to build on that foundation and ensure that the EEA of 30 states is ready for what comes next. This concludes my remarks and I look forward to hearing your reflections and answer any questions should you have any at that later stage. Thank you.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much, Ambassador. And now I give the floor to Nicolas von Lingen, who is the EU chair of the EEA Committee. Please, you have the floor.
Nicolas von Lingen
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, honorable members, your excellency, ladies and gentlemen. First, let me recall that EEA cooperation and the work that you'll be doing over the next two days is a vibrant example of our continued cooperation and partnership. So this all matters tremendously. You meet every six months and we're happy also to be able to see that you are at the heart of the debates that go through the EU, but also the extended internal market that we have together with the EEA. Particularly in this context of geopolitical tensions, uncertainty, European unity and unity with the most integrated partners is essential.
In this context, the EU certainly appreciates the continued support and close alignment with the EU when it comes to sanctions regimes against Russia, and also support in humanitarian, financial, political, and military support provided to Ukraine. We also welcome that we've seen over the last years ever-increasing cooperation on defense. And in the past six months, we've had the incorporation of secure connectivity and also the EDIP program with Norway. This reflects the privileged position, and I recommend it's really a privileged position for the EFTA states and the EU to be and to be able to cooperate in these new areas. Another priority for us is also the competitiveness and prosperity of the EU and of the EEA by effect.
And the internal market remains at the heart of our efforts. And against the backdrop of economic volatility, the One Europe, One Market roadmap agreed by all three EU institutions, the Parliament, the Council, and the Commission, and that is also regularly updated, sets out concrete actions and targets to strengthen Europe's competitiveness by the end of 2027. We need to apply this sense of purpose across the internal market, including in its extension through the EEA Agreement. But because closeness and special rights also come with special responsibilities and obligations, let me go through our assessment of the implementation of the EEA Agreement and perspective that we see for the next six months. And I would go through having as a lightning rod, I would say, the principle of homogeneity and level playing field through all of the process that we have in the implementation of the agreement.
First, incorporation of EU acts. One market, one set of rules. In the past six months, we've been able to adopt 131 Joint Committee decisions incorporating 212 legal acts. We've included important pieces of legislation, I think they were mentioned by the presidency and also by the EFTA side, when it comes to procedural state aid regulation, in the financial services sector, or in transport. But there's one file which I think is particularly interesting, and it was also mentioned by Ambassador Schafhauser, it's the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism.
It really is the representation of if there's a will, there's a way. At 30, we will be applying the CBAM on the 1st of January 2027 because we were able to resolve the technically difficult issues that we had to face. This is customs, this is taxation, this is the internal market, it's climate. We were also able to rely on tools which were otherwise thought to be outside the scope of the agreement, such as customs, and also to have a financial contribution to make sure that the system operates properly. And this is indispensable to have the same rules so that operators and administrations can operate the system in the same way.
But despite these efforts, an additional push will be necessary to incorporate the rest of the EU acquis and reduce the backlog even further. For us, the backlog is not an administrative issue. It's a legal obligation under the agreement. But even beyond this legal obligation, it's also a matter which has effects and real-life consequences for the rights of citizens, their health, and also the competitiveness of our businesses in all 30 states. The backlog is also a political matter.
It was most recently discussed in the European Parliament's AFET Committee on the 1st of October. It was also centrally discussed in the Council conclusions of June 2026 and also in bilateral meetings between the President of the Commission and the Prime Minister of Norway and the Prime Minister of Iceland. And despite solid numbers and progress in some areas, more needs to be done and we believe that things need to be done also differently. In 2025, the EU adopted over 800 acts, whereas the average of acts incorporated over the past five years has been 650. You see the difficulty that we have.
We have an increasing backlog and ever more acts that will build this backlog. We think we also need some progress in some specific areas, such as energy. Last month, we incorporated acts related to the gas network codes, but three energy acts which were incorporated in July 2025 are still blocked by constitutional requirements in the EFTA states. And we also need progress on all other outstanding energy acts. We will also need to intensify the efforts across the board because this year, on two occasions, we beat the record of the highest number of acts in the backlog at over 650.
This means we need to look at mechanisms that we have to incorporate the acquis. Let me mention three. First, we have devised an action plan about the old backlog, which means acts which haven't been incorporated for five years or longer. Here, we have a particular attention. We've gone down in 2026 from 67 in January to 47 today.
But on the 1st of January, new acts will come to that list and we'll have to start again. Second, at the beginning of the year, the Commission put forward a backlog initiative where we wanted to focus on priority acts and also to look at systematic solutions for acts that don't require that much time. And we also welcome that on the EFTA side, with the EFTA Secretariat but also the EFTA states, they have looked at their procedure and were discussing the possibility and also the implementation of fast-track procedures.
But we also think that other systemic solutions that are available under the agreement or that we've used in other sectors could be used for that purpose. Third, there's also an increased look, I think Ambassador Schafhauser also mentioned those, at the domestic level. In Iceland, in Norway, the governments announced measures. In Iceland, following the referendum, the government announced measures and explained how it needed to pay increased attention due to the importance that was recognized of the EEA Agreement in the life of every citizen and every business. In Norway also, we've heard some announcement on the 18th of September and we're looking forward to those bearing fruits and seeing concrete results on the number of acts.
Once the act is incorporated, it still needs to apply. And often acts are blocked by constitutional requirements. This is a right, but it's also a responsibility within a normal timeframe, reasonable timeframe, for these acts to be, these constitutional requirements to be lifted. This is a responsibility for the governments to put forward the acts to their parliament, but also for the parliaments to look at those in a timely manner. And this, we think, where when we look at the reforms that were discussed both in Iceland and Norway, what will be important is the ability to look at the act before they need to be incorporated.
And it could be as soon as a discussion starts in the EU. In the EU, even before legislative proposal comes out, we have impact assessments. We have "Have Your Say". Every of these means should be used so that the views and also the priorities of EFTA states can be brought into the process. Because if we want to have these acts applying at the same time, the discussion in our 30 countries can start, and we would say must start, at the same time.
This would really be decision-shaping in action and giving full effect to it. Last part is also the application. And I'm happy also today that the President of the EFTA Surveillance Authority is joining us because we have a very good cooperation to make sure that once the acts are in the agreement, they can also be applied and the benefits accrue also to businesses and citizens. And we're looking forward to the cooperation not only on general policy enforcement issues, but also on specific issues of enforcement. Let me end with one last note for an important element of our level playing field, I think that was mentioned also by Ambassador Schafhauser, is the EEA Financial Mechanism.
And we look forward to the signature of the last of the 15 memoranda of understanding with next Monday. That would be timely because we're almost around the corner of the next financial mechanism, which will start in May 2028. But with this, let me thank you for your attention and wish you fruitful discussions today.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much, Mr. von Lingen. Then we move to Arne Røksund, who is the President of the EFTA Surveillance Authority. Please, you have the floor.
Arne Røksund
Thank you, Chair, and members of Parliament, ladies and gentlemen. We are living at a time of international turmoil and Europe is in the middle of a period of profound change. And in times like this, it's worth reminding ourselves of something fundamental.
The EEA agreement has never been more important. And this is becoming clearer by the day. Norway's efforts to strengthen its capacity for EEA implementation illustrate this importance and the wider challenge. Ensuring that sufficient resources are devoted to incorporation and implementation is essential across the EEA EFTA states if the agreement is to continue functioning effectively in an increasingly complex regulatory environment. And what struck me more in the recent referendum debate in Iceland was the consensus across the board on the importance of the EEA agreement and the need to safeguard this framework of cooperation.
And when it comes to Liechtenstein, you've always been best in class. So I imagine you like to hear that. I think the internal market remains Europe's greatest economic asset. Its strength lies not only in its size, but also in the certainty created by clear, predictable rules and open markets. This is why the principles underpinning the EEA agreement remain so relevant today.
Common rules, and as everyone has mentioned so far, a level playing field, mutual trust, and effective enforcement remain the foundation of the EEA agreement. These principles are also what make legal homogeneity so important. Maintaining that homogeneity requires continuous effort. For the EFTA Surveillance Authority, this means ensuring that the internal market rules are applied consistently and effectively across the EEA EFTA states. Enforcement is part of that responsibility.
But so are dialogue, cooperation, and engagement with the states and our institutional partners. The close relationship between ESA, the EEA EFTA states, the European Commission, and the other European institutions remain one of the great strengths of the EEA framework. We're, however, often accused of being more Catholic than the Pope. It is difficult to defend oneself against such allegations. Our ambition is, of course, to be neither laxer than the Commission nor stricter.
Initiatives such as the annual surveillance policy dialogue between the Commission and ESA demonstrate the value of working together to maintain a well-functioning and homogeneous internal market. And it's important to know that when we take infringement steps against the nations, we always coordinate with Commission after thorough legal discussions. The other important factor is ESA's preference for early and constructive dialogue with the states. This approach has worked well in the past. Of approximately 700 substance cases opened in the period from 2016 until today, only four have been referred to the EFTA Court.
And I say this is the substance cases. ESA seeks to engage with the states before matters reach the formal infringement stage, provided that the state concerned is willing to engage. Sometimes the engagement can be a little slow. We see, for instance, that we find common understanding with the states in more than 90% of the substance cases before any infringement steps are taken. After we have been through the two formal infringement steps before bringing a nation to court, which is called letter of formal notice and a reasoned opinion, more than 99% of the cases of the substance cases are solved without going to court.
So that underlines the success of dialogue. And it also underlines that infringement steps lubricate and encourage the wish to have a dialogue with ESA.
But I must underline that the overall overall impression in ESA from cooperating with all three states is a wish and willingness to make the EEA agreement work. And another interesting development is also that we see a tendency for the national courts on all levels, that is the district court, the appeal court and the supreme court, to engage with the EFTA court and ask for advisory opinions. So what we see is actually that the national court system is more and more an EEA court. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the main message from ESA to you is that from our point of view and what is our responsibilities, we're happy with the cooperation with the states, not ignoring that we have some difficult cases. The success of the EEA agreement should never be taken for granted.
Its continued success depends on commitment, effective implementation and a shared shared understanding of its value. Our task is not merely to preserve the EEA agreement, it is to ensure that it continues to serve as a foundation for competitiveness, resilience and prosperity. And ESA remains fully committed to that objective. Thank you for the attention.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much, Mr. Røksund. Thanks again to all four speakers. Now I open the floor for questions and comments. Please indicate whom you are addressing and keep your intervention to around two minutes. Who would like to take the floor?
Nikolai.
Nikolai
Thank you, Norbert. I can start. When it comes to the backlog, it might be interesting to note that the Norwegian Parliament has taken an initiative to make a report on across, well, we established a group led by Trine Lise, all parties involved, in how we can ensure a better process in how Parliament is involved when it comes to new directives and regulations from the EU. And the report has a number of recommendations to the government on how they should work to ensure that we are involved at an earlier stage, thus also forcing the government to be involved at an earlier stage, which we also will help bring down the backlog. We believe it will help bring down the backlog.
But also and even more importantly is that we will have hopefully a debate about important regulations and directives at the point in time where it's still relevant to have a dialogue with the EU about those regulations and directives. So we think this is an important piece of work and we're of course happy to share that report with those who are interested. It's in Norwegian, so you'll have to use, you know, super intelligence to translate it. But that might be relevant. I also have a question and it's for Arne Røksund.
We see that some of the dialogues with ESA, they seem to drag out in time, especially the notification dialogues that the government has with with you. And I was wondering if that has to do with a lack of resources at in your office or if it's because the government is slow.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much, Nick.
I would like to collect the the questions and comments and then to go for a round of answers then. Ms. Sundnes, colleague.
Sundnes
Well, actually, Nikolai perfectly conveyed the message from the Norwegian delegation, so.
I found it, thank you. Thank you. It's interesting hearing about the Norwegian proposals. I was wondering if if you could tell us a little bit about the processing progressing of the work and which steps you see the most promising reducing the the backlog. It would be interesting hearing a little bit about it.
Isaksen
But I would like to ask Mr. von Lingen a question because in May you told us that the safeguards of ferroalloys were not intended to be permanent. That their effects were being reviewed in the EEA Joint Committee and that the conditions for removing them had not been yet met. You also said the economic security measures were being considered case by case, taking into account both the limits of the EEA agreement and the economic realities. I was wondering what has the review shown and which conditions are still not met? Is there a timeline for the safeguards where the when they could be lifted?
Speaker 11
Thank you very much. Then colleague Schaldemose, Vice-President Schaldemose, please.
Thank you very much and nice to see you colleagues again. It's not so long time since some of us saw each other in Iceland. Well, thank you for your presentations and it would be nice to to have your report from the Norwegian Parliament. I can read it, I guess. And I can translate to the colleagues in case.
Christel Schaldemose
But but I think it is an interesting question how to how to make sure that we implement our laws. I mean, it's not just you who has it, we also have it, member states of EU. We are legislating quite a lot. And therefore I think it could be interesting also to have a more general discussion with each other about how we do regulation. As a Social Democrat, I I think it is important to regulate when we have issues and problems.
But there's no doubt that in general, if we could do it smarter, faster, more precise, that could also be something we we could discuss. So I think not just as a part of the EEA agreement and the backlog discussion, but a more general discussion about how can we in general, those of us who share the same values and ideas and the same common market, how can we do things better? I think it's it's interesting and we are also trying to have these kind of discussions in the European Parliament. And and honestly, we are also here, I guess, split a little bit because at one hand, many of us we believe that the regulation we we ask for is is needed, but on the other hand, it's also important to find the best way to to do it, to find the best tools. And I think this is a probably a common European agenda no matter where in Europe you come from.
So I would be happy to also have these discussions more concretely and maybe the sometimes it can be best suited to have a more overall general debate about it, but it could also sometimes be relevant in a specific when we have the specific proposal for regulation in front of us. So so the dialogue is is important, more important than ever. So also thank you for for raising these questions.
Speaker 14
Thank you very much. Then colleague Baldursdóttir. Hope I pronounced it right.
Baldursdóttir
I don't remember which one of you mentioned the acts that are delayed because of constitutional requirements in the EEA EFTA countries. Some of those acts are delayed because they require approval by national parliament. So my question or thinking is how can we reduce these delays while fully respecting the constitutional requirements and the role of the national parliament?
Thank you all for your good presentations. Yes.
Sommaruga
Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you all for your presentations. I'm sorry, I thought that the member of the EEA was all expressed the opinion and I was only at the end. But my question is about the decision-shaping. I have heard from Ambassador Schafhauser that it was a favorable opinion about the system. Maybe can precise how why it is so good functioning there, what have the EEA state obtained in this process.
But I have heard from the committee, the Commission, that it is not functioning so good and there is a hope in the Commission that there is in this phase of the decision-shaping more involvement to prevent this delay for the backlog. So maybe if we can have of this question a second round about the reflections. Because why I ask? Because we have a decision-shaping in our bilateral three agreement between Switzerland and EU that we are now discussing in the parliament. Thank you.
Grímsson
Thank you very much. Just to clarify a little bit regarding, not to clarify, just to mention Protocol 35 in Iceland. We have already, it has already been put forward a bill to change the law regarding the European area, Economic European Area, and it is already in a committee in the parliament. At the same time, ESA has already started a procedure and this is something that just we have to, we know about and this is just something that is going, not hand in hand, but we need to find out if we will be able to finish this legislation in the parliament in time or if that is even a matter for ESA. So my question is for Ragnheiður, if Icelandic parliament finish this protocol, will the procedure for the EFTA Court be stopped or is it not even maybe not clear?
Kastner
Yeah, thanks y'all for the valuable insights. As I understood Mr. Schaffhauser and Mr. von Lingen correctly, strong efforts are taken from all parties to accelerate the implementation and also the coordination of the acts. I think we all understand that homogeneity is an important enabler for a strong internal market that we all want for all of us. And as Norway, we are also discussing solutions for Liechtenstein how to involve the parliaments in earlier stage of the implementation of these acts. So I hope we will find good solutions.
Nonetheless, it seems that the efforts that are taken across all the EFTA states are not fully reaching the expectations according to the EU chair of the EEA Joint Committee and also according the backlog that is still increasing. What is the opinion of the EFTA chair of the Standing Committee to this analysis of the EU? Is there...
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much. Are there any other requests for taking the floor? This is not the case, then we could come to our, to your response. Maybe you would like to start?
Arne Røksund
Yes, thank you. There were two questions, one concerning state aid and one concerning Protocol 35. This from Niklas Astrup, this question why these notifications drag out in time and whether it's the government that is slow or ESA that is slow. First, this is state aid question and in general state aid distorts competition, which is illegal. And in principle all state aid should be notified to ESA.
And when you know that I think the average in Europe on state aid is approximately 1% of GDP, so it's a lot of money. And it's obvious that ESA would be a bottleneck if we should have all these notifications on all state aid. So there's a lot of systems to, that makes simplifications. But the big cases, which is not tested yet, will go to us. And we give actually the nations the priority, the privilege of prioritization.
So every 14th day we have a meeting with one of the ministries, the Ministry of Industry, to discuss which cases are most important for you to have solved. So they decide. This is a confidential pre-notification process. It has to do with business secrets and all of these things, so it's confidential. So we never reveal neither the tempo nor the content of these pre-notifications.
We have, as you probably know, that we have an ambition of a couple of months, but some of these takes more than a year. And it's because it's complicated. And I wouldn't say it's neither lack of will or capacity of the ministries or of ESA. But and since it's confidential it is a little bit difficult. But if I can just dare to take one example, which is recent and it's decided on, it's the windmills outside of the western coast of Norway, Utsira.
It's a lot of money, 37 billion kroner I think. 36. 36, which is a lot of money. And of course there's a lot of interest in this, a lot of businesses interest. And they do lobbying to the ministry and try to tell them, you all want this.
So if you stop lobbying and change the rules while we're doing the pre-notification, it'll go a lot faster. Because when they change the rules while we already have started, we have to restart. And it takes time. And this is quite new, it's also quite new these offshore windmills in an EU setting. And we don't want to lose the case.
And what we also see is that the big economic interests, they also afford big expensive law firms helping them. So we have to do this very right. If not, I mean if you lose a case like this, you know it has huge consequences. This sounds like an excuse for taking time of course, and it is in a way, but I think it's necessary. We can discuss this afterwards also.
Protocol 35, I wish I could say yes. Protocol 35 is a question of whether the national and EEA legislation is not aligned, which should prevail. And in Iceland, it is pretty simple, it is the national and not the EEA that should prevail, and then there is a proposition from the government to parliament, to Althingi, to vote over this, and if I understand it correctly, you intend to vote yes for this. No, you don't have to answer. Are you going to give me a yes, and maybe I can give you a no?
Actually, we cannot give you a yes because this is also a dialogue with the EFTA Court when we have, because we bring you to court, and we've done this, and this will be close to the decision, and we have also previous experience on this, that it's not very popular to withdraw the cases, so I cannot say yes or no. But the most important thing is that you actually vote yes to the proposition. I imagine that there are Icelanders here that disagree with me on this, but that's why we brought it to court, and this is a case that has been going on since 2010. Yes.
Grímsson
Thank you very much. Actually, because we have to understand that all of us, that there is a debate about this in Iceland, and there's a political debate, and this will of course continue, but hopefully we will be able to solve it. And I hope for a certain conclusion, and we'll see how it goes. But actually, the bill is to add to the law some provision that the EU regulation should prevail if they do collide. But at the moment, and since 1994, we have in the laws some kind of a clarification provision.
So this is what the debate is about. Is there, I'm not talking about even my opinion, just to try to clarify what the debate is about. Some people are saying that this is already enough, this clarification rule. So I'm sure that you know this very well. Thank you.
Nicolas von Lingen
Yes, thank you. I think it's timely that I speak after the EFTA Surveillance Authority, just to actually support the two points that were made, both on state aid and on infringement, that we go through the same motions. We have the same responsibilities. We tried, and that's why I was mentioning this, the importance of this dialogue that we have, it's Article 109 of the EEA Agreement, very important on policy, on infringement, on surveillance policy, and on individual issues. One market, one rules.
So that's really this homogeneity. That's why you hear me speak a lot about the backlog, but it's not only the backlog. The homogeneity goes throughout the life of the agreement and in everything we do, because that's the expectation of citizens and businesses.
And I don't want to go into the specifics of Protocol 35, but also I think there it's the rights of citizens. And I think the the courts in Iceland have also clearly identified that there was something lacking and that they could not benefit from their EEA rights because of situation. So I think that's that's what we that's what we look at. We have the we go through the same difficult files on state aid, very complicated, and for the very same reasons, and we are many more than at ESA at the Commission on on that. And on the infringement also, it's indeed what's important, it's a dialogue between the the state, but then when it gets to the court, then it's a it's a different process.
But again, I think the the case was pending for at least six years or more years. No, 16 years, no? Yeah. So I think I think we're a bit at a time when perhaps we need to find closure on this one. I think that's that's that would be our view.
On the important question on also on the roles of parliament, and I and I will go on that. Indeed, I think the idea is not to say that constitutional requirements should be disposed of. They're right under 103 of the EEA agreement. It's fully understood. But in there, there's a there's a principle that normally this should take around six months.
And after that, it's seen a bit like as an anomaly. But my point was not only parliaments need to to act quicker, but they also need to get the act on the table quicker. Because as soon as the act is incorporated, normally you should be able to start your work, and this also is the responsibility of government to put the act in front of the parliament. But I think it's a it's a shared responsibility. So yes, but some acts are awaiting lifting of constitutional requirements since 2022.
That cannot possibly be seen as reasonable. Member states apply the acts on day one. And they are subject to infringement proceedings on day one if they don't apply the acts at the time when they ought to be applied. So I think it's a it's an important when we compare one to one, you I think it's a special rights, but then it come also with special responsibilities. Then there was a question about decision-shaping.
I think that's also an important element because when you get decision-shaping for us indeed needs to happen as early or can happen as early as possible. Our citizens, our businesses, our MPs, I think everybody intervenes very soon and as soon as they think it's it's important in the process. And there is decision-shaping mechanism in the EEA agreement, including the EFTA comments which Ambassador Schafhauser referred to. We receive three to six per semester. We discuss those in the working groups.
So we really have that dialogue. But then if you look at it, normally before even the Commission comes out with a proposal, there will have been an impact assessment, there will be there will have been a public consultation, and the legislative process is long enough that you can normally intervene and say have your views. And also today, like today's session is really also an opportunity to see which are the issues which you think are important and relevant for your for your countries and where you want to be involved. And I would say the sooner the better. There was one last question about the the safeguards.
The safeguards we have discussed every three months as mandated by the Article 113 of the EEA agreement. And the next discussion will actually be on Friday. We'll have our quarterly review, and we have colleagues from DG TRADE and also experts from the EFTA states who come and explain or ask questions about the functioning and the effects of the safeguard measures. The last discussion took place in July at the EEA Joint Committee of July.
And at that time, two things I think could be said. One, it was still a bit too early to see the effects on the market because there had been some because the safeguards had only started producing effects because there had been some warehousing or you had imported before they applied or they were the market was adjusting. The second thing is that the prices on the market were still depressed, at least for in the situation that led to the imposition of this the adoption of the safeguards, namely the injury on the EU industry was still there because the prices were still not at the right level. When it will what is the timeline? The safeguards are indeed not permanent.
Under the WTO rules, they cannot be permanent, as we've seen with the steel measures. But and we've also committed to have a review of them after one year. So we'll be able to do that looking at the data over a year to see the developments on the market and what the effect of these safeguard measures have been. So I'm happy to report here also, but just to let you know, these discussions we're having not only on the market developments, but also on the operation, the customs issue, we are discussing them also concretely with the colleagues. And if there's any problems, our colleagues are there to try to address them, but they remain a safeguard.
Pascal Schafhauser
Yes, thank you. I think there were maybe three questions I'd like to or respond to. One was backlog, one was decision-shaping, and one was maybe how to reduce 103. They have already been touched upon by previous answers. Maybe let's start with the elephant in in the room, the backlog.
I mean, obviously the numbers speak for themselves. It it has gone up and we see that also with with concern. Of course, I mean, having the Irish presidency, we would have hoped to make it into the Guinness Book of Records finally, but this is certainly not one of our aims. No, we'll try to to work with it. I think it's it's important and the processes have been mentioned that are ongoing.
I mean, our procedures were basically established 30 years ago. They have been adapted a bit. The EU has has changed much more, I think fair to say. We we have not changed that much. We have added resources, but the basic incorporation process was was more or less the same.
And I think now it's it's very clear for everyone, it just doesn't work. And we obviously also appreciate the the efforts and and all the ideas from from the EU. But we we also have in addition to that some thinking ongoing if if just tuning a little bit here and there is is really enough because I think there are like 800 to 1,000 legal acts that come from the EU which we need to incorporate. So only to have the status quo, we need to do that. As I said today, we we are about around 500.
This year we might come to 600. But that still leaves a gap. So how do we reduce? So we actually probably need a more more substantial overhaul and a more more thorough look at from from the scratch from scratch if we can or to the extent we can to come up with some some ways of of how to deal with this more efficient and and use the effort and the resources we have. All of us don't have unlimited resources on on the right on the right acts and not spend the same on very important acts as on on some technical ones.
So I think that is is ongoing and I'm I'm quite confident something will come out from there, which then also and I haven't mentioned Liechtenstein because we well as the smallest we had to be efficient to to be on on the same pace as the as the others. We're used to work with small or limited number of resources. But what we need to do and then we need to do that together is if we all get more effective or efficient nationally to actually coordinate.
It doesn't help, and I've said it before, it doesn't help if one or two of us are done with the assessment and the third one is not, or has assessed another act. We need to work on the same acts, otherwise we're not going to make any progress. So I think that element is important and is also looked into how we can strengthen the cooperation and coordination between the three to make progress and make it faster. Then there was the decision-shaping, and I think, yes, it's an important element. We have the comments which I mentioned.
There are a lot of other ways. I mean, Nicolas also mentioned them in expert groups, you can do public consultations, we are part of agencies in different management boards. I mean, there are across the board a lot of possibilities to do so. I think from the experience from Liechtenstein shows basically it works best if, well, obviously if you're early. I think we can improve on that one, and that's also what everyone is looking into, also when it comes to involvement of parliament, but also be selective.
So there's no point trying to influence all these 800 or 1000 acts because it's just not possible. But really to focus on what are the interests, where are the relevant points to influence. And I think there are actually two ways, and there also one has to distinguish. You know, one is to influence on general terms, because often we also have a tendency, or at least the risk, to say, well, we have a very specific problem in our country, so we need to influence.
Speaker 25
Sorry to interrupt, but we have to conclude now because our next speaker has to leave.
Pascal Schafhauser
So selective and on points which are important and which are more general, because specific ones we deal with in the EEA. But I think including the parliament early on will help on the decision-shaping and will also help on the EEA and the 103, because when you're involved, we don't need to wait till the end of the process to run parliamentary information and also legislation. Because last word, as Nicolas said, we have this loophole that by not lifting constitutional requirements, we can avoid infringement procedures. And I think unfortunately we probably make use of that from time to time.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much. Then we are with this at the end of our topic of number four. We will continue to follow the issues raised through our parliamentary cooperation. So let us move now to the EU-Norway political relations. Our discussions comes as cooperation on defense industry and secure connectivity is deepening, giving the report particular relevance to a partnership that extend well beyond the trade.
I invite now my colleague Lukasz Kohut, who is member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the rapporteur, to present his draft report. Lukasz, you have the floor.
Łukasz Kohut
Thank you very much, Chair. Dear honorable deputies and guests, in recent years there has been a significant change in the international order. Russian aggression, the war in the Middle East, tough competition with China, and unpredictability of Donald Trump administration have all contributed to this instability. Together, these developments have created an increasingly unstable geopolitical environment. Together, we must address these challenges.
Speaker 27
This is why the European Parliament is working on a report on political relations between the EU and Norway, first time from 1994. The main aim of this report is to reinforce European security. Firstly, the EU-Norway security and defense partnership must be fully implemented. This will strengthen strategic dialogue between the EU and Norway on foreign and security policy, moving towards earlier and more structured consultations on matters of common interest, particularly with regard to Arctic and maritime security. We are exposed to many of the same security and hybrid threats from the East.
One of the most relevant aspects of our cooperation with Oslo concerns security on and beneath the surface of water. This includes protecting critical infrastructure, such as offshore energy installations, pipelines, and submarine cables. This must be achieved through enhanced information sharing, cybersecurity, and resilience against foreign information manipulation and interference. It also involves coordinating responses to malicious activities in the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea, the Barents Sea, and the Baltic Sea region. EU programs have given us an opportunity to strengthen our collective defense within the NATO structure.
The SAFE instrument and other relevant EU defense initiatives provide an opportunity to strengthen EU-Norwegian cooperation in defense capabilities and the European defense industrial base. This can be achieved through joint procurement, defense innovation, military mobility, and integrated defense supply chains. These measures will enhance Europe's defense preparedness, industrial resilience, and the better cooperation between us. The Jelcz company in Racibórz can supply truck chassis for delivering air defense systems capable of countering drones. Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa and Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace are engaged in joint defense industrial cooperation.
These are concrete examples of fruitful European defense industrial cooperation. However, security is a broader term. Prior to full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia weaponized energy and exploited Europe's strategic dependencies. Europe must learn from this experience. Norwegian oil and gas supplies have been crucial in enabling Europe to phase out Russian energy imports and have gained further strategic significance in light of ongoing disruption to global energy flows.
This is why we must develop joint initiatives in areas such as carbon capture and storage, offshore wind power, hydrogen production, and the electrification of offshore operations. We also need to establish different forms of industrial cooperation. For instance, the Northern Dimension Parliamentary Forum could resume its role as a platform for parliamentary dialogue between the European Parliament and like-minded Northern Dimension partners, adapted to the new European security environment and, of course, without participation of Russia. It could be a good place for representatives of all EEA states to cooperate with the EU. Thank you very much.
Tusen takk.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much, Łukasz. Now we have a short time for questions and comments, particularly maybe from our two colleagues from Norway, if you like or if you wish. Yeah, please.
Sundnes
Thank you. First of all, I think it's very positive that such a report is being drafted, and most certainly when it comes to security and defense and security in a broader sense, I do think that both Norway and the EU could enhance each other's strengths in these areas.
Could you say, I've seen that there's a lot of amendments to the drafts at this time. Could you say something about what you see as common proposals for amendment and what maybe stands out as something different or new or something that we haven't taken into consideration? Thank you.
Speaker 27
Well, I cannot... Further requests? Okay, please, yeah. I cannot speak in details about the negotiations because they are still ongoing. And of course the deadline of the negotiations is about two, three weeks now.
And on the plenary, on January plenary session in Strasbourg, we'll have a final vote and probably final debate about it. But now I see that the atmosphere regarding Norway is very positive from many different political groups. So I'm pretty sure that the report will be very stable and comfortable for both sides.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much, Lukas. We look forward to following the report's progress and maintaining a close exchange with you as the rapporteur. Then with that, we now turn to the emission trading system. So this means we move to top six of our agenda. Thank you very much again, Lukas.
With the recent incorporation of CBAM into the EEA agreement, this discussion is an opportunity to consider how carbon pricing and protection against carbon leakage can work coherently across our shared market. For this, welcome Peter Liese, who is our rapporteur on the emission trading system. So first I would like to invite you, Peter, to take the floor.
Peter Liese
Yeah, thank you, Norbert. You know, we come from the same political family and even from the same party. That's why I work a lot with Norbert and I'm very happy to be here in this important meeting. The cooperation in climate policy in general and the ETS and CBAM is of course very important. And we know that we will only attack and mitigate the climate change when we work together.
It's a global question, so at least Europe and our direct neighbors should work together. And that's what we are doing. There is already an established cooperation and as a ETS rapporteur for including the aviation, for example, I had already meeting with the government of Iceland 18 years ago. So there's a long-standing understanding from my side that there are particular challenges from your countries. But we are all united when we fight for an ambitious climate policy and the ETS is the cornerstone.
That's, you know, in my draft report I did a calculation. Since we introduced the emission trading system, we have reduced the emission of those sectors that are included, which is mainly energy-intensive industry like steel, paper, chemical, aviation, maritime and electricity. We have halved the emission. So they went down one billion tons.
And one billion tons of CO2 is more than 136 countries of the world emit. So and it's not only small island states, but also quite industrialized countries like Finland, Denmark, Croatia, or New Zealand are among those 136 countries. So it is the key instrument. And I would also say it's the most successful climate law in the world. So it was really important in the past decades and it's very important to keep the course on climate.
We want to cooperate. We are in negotiations with the United Kingdom. UK under Boris Johnson left Europe completely. Now we have to do a lot of efforts to bring them back to the, for example, the Erasmus program. And step by step we are trying to come to agreements.
And I hope it is possible that we conclude the negotiations with the United Kingdom by November when there is the EU summit together with UK. The CBAM is a particular important part of the whole climate architecture because of course we want to avoid carbon leakage when a cement plant or a steel plant in our countries, European Union or those that are connected with us via the ETS, will leave the area and the steel comes anyhow from India or China, then that is no benefit for the climate. That's why we want to protect the production inside the European Union and the economic area. But something that is completely underestimated with the CBAM is that it already encouraged the rest of the world to follow. And that's the key, you know.
We are not enough in the European Union and also together with you, we are not enough to really tackle global climate change. But the rest of the world is now establishing ETS systems. We have them already in China, in India, Japan, many states in the US, despite a Donald Trump, they have it, many, many parts of Canada, Mexico, and Brazil and Turkey has introduced ETS now with the formal justification that they don't want to pay for the CBAM. So for the CBAM they should pay at the border of the European Union and the money is in the pockets of the Europeans and we can redistribute it, but it's in the hands of the European Union. So they rather want to keep the money in Turkey and invest in the decarbonization in Turkey.
And I think that's a good effect that triggers the global climate agenda. And the most astonishing figure I learned in the last weeks when I worked on my report and discussed it with many, many experts and many stakeholders, there was a professor from MIT in United States, MIT Massachusetts, that said that 80% of steel, 80% of fertilizers, and 80% of cement globally is already under an ETS. So it's true that United States stepped out of the Paris Agreement. It's true that the ambition level in India and China is of course not comparable to ours. But they are starting to cover the same products that we cover under CBAM.
And I think that's more important for the global climate policy than many diplomatic efforts that we do, many other things that we can do at home. So that's really a big thing.
That's why I defend the ETS. But on the other hand, in English they say tight is right, too tight is broke. So the ETS that is designed now is very tight, very challenging. I talked to Norbert with a company on his constituency, they say we have no possibility to decarbonize in the near future, so we need a bit of time and more support when we develop these technologies, and I think they have a case. That's why we intend to change the ETS.
We can still deliver on our climate targets because the current ETS is over-ambitious. We would be completely decarbonized in the sector already in 2039, which is way before our decarbonization target for the European Union. So there is some room for maneuver, and we will use this room for maneuver to give industry a bit more time and at the same time to even stronger support the decarbonization by financial instruments. Commission proposed an industrial accelerator, so there's a financial tool that brings fresh money to those companies that want to decarbonize. We need to abolish the bottlenecks, allow CCS.
Norway is way better than, for example, the country I know best, Germany. You are doing very well in CCS and we are far, far behind. So we need to do that all at the same time. So that's it from my side. I saw already some hands raised, that's why I will give the rest of the time for your questions and hopefully my answers.
Thank you.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much, Peter Liese, for your introduction. And Nikolai, you want to respond or to present your perspective?
Nikolai
Yes, thank you, and I'll be short since there are many questions in the audience. And just say thank you also to Mr. Liese for taking the time to be here. I understand you are the longest-serving MEP, 32 years. Must have been elected when you were a baby. So but a lot of experience, that's good.
In short, Norway is a big supporter of the ETS. It's the most cost-effective way of cutting emissions that we do it together rather than doing it one by one. But it's of course important to have a system which allows our industries to be competitive. So exactly the balance you were describing is very important for us. And in general, the Norwegian government has been supportive of the revised proposal of the ETS.
One point though I would like to bring up because you mentioned CCS is transport of CO2 across borders. We have of course Northern Lights that you've heard about. When they operate and collect CO2 in different member states, they need a separate permit in each member state they collect in. So they actually have to establish offices as well to do it. Now that's very cumbersome, very administrative, big administrative burden.
And what could be done instead is to ensure that it's the country where the operator is operating from that gives you the permit, and then that applies across the countries where you collect your CO2 from as well. Because a ship that collects CO2 can be stopping in several ports in different countries on the way, and it's unnecessary to have permits in all countries.
So that's one point of improvement that you can bring along to your in your follow-up. So with that.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much, Nikolai. I'd like to collect, Peter, if you accept this, then colleague Isaksen, please, you have the floor.
Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Liese, for your presentations. I want to discuss a little bit the ETS adaptations for Iceland regarding the aviation. We've we've discussed this here before in a meeting here. I think it was in Strasbourg rather than in Brussels.
Isaksen
And after that, there was some kind of agreement or arrangements regarding Iceland with a specific adaptations for aviation until 2030. But the current arrangements expires at the end of this year. And airplanes plan schedules and fares well in advance, as you probably know, so predictability matters quite much regarding the competitiveness of Iceland. So I was wondering, can we count on the support of the European Parliament for swift approval so the extensions can be confirmed in the EEA Joint Committee before the end of this year? Thank you.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much. Then colleague Snæbjörnsson, please. Hopefully I pronounced it right.
Snæbjörnsson
It was quite good. Thank you very much, Snæbjörnsson. I wanted to talk about this and importance of it's quite important that everybody participate in reducing carbon because of of course it's it's earth that we are talking about and we all have to work on it and we all will benefit from it. I was thinking about the similar topics like Isaksen about that and it's really important that when we are implementing system and and working with system that is it has to work for for everybody. And and I think it's we have to make sure that they take care of special situation like in aviation for an island like in Iceland and marine and industry and that is CO2 friendlier than in some other places and etc.
So I think it's really important just that we what we are doing and and what I was wondering about is what is coming up after that and and like Ingibjörg said, can we count on that the system will fulfill our needs also in Iceland. Thank you.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much. Did anyone else raise his hand? No, this is not the case. Then please, Peter.
Peter Liese
Yeah, thank you for those questions and taking them one by one. So on the transportation of CO2, you are absolutely right and that fits into a general agenda that we are following here. I I would have wished we follow that agenda already seven years ago when we started the Green Deal. Because the first thing that I did, I'm also not only the rapporteur but also the coordinator of EPP in the Environment Committee. When the Green Deal came up, I said to my colleagues, so let's first of all identify all the obstacles where companies that want to invest in green technologies cannot do it because of lacking conditions.
And this is a typical example, you know. Everybody wants that we decarbonize, but when the administrative burden of doing it is so huge, then we we keep the people frustrated. And Norway knows it. We had a big issue similar to that, not really on climate but on the packaging.
There is an obligation that when you are a small company and you have something that you pack and send it anywhere, you need a representative in all 27 member states. And people are getting crazy and you know, we identified this problem already last October, told the Commission, solve it. They solved it, but it's blocked by the member states. And this is another example where member states' different legislation and not the single entry point for European companies or for third country companies that want to do the good business, you know, that is to be abolished. And if we do that in many, many areas, we would be a lot further.
You know, imagine the biggest plant that produces lime is close to my constituency. I visited it several times. They want to decarbonize, but they told me for four years, when they had already the grant of the European Innovation Fund, they had the money from their owner, it was prohibited to transport CO2 in Germany. Not even that you cannot do it without administrative burden, but it was prohibited. So this is crazy and we need to move forward on this simplification for the climate, not against the climate, but for the climate.
On Iceland, aviation and maritime, both issues. To be honest, on aviation, I talked to your minister 18 years ago, but I'm not aware about the current state because I have understood it's a parallel track. It's not dealt with in my report, but in a separate negotiation. I will look at it with the help of your secretariat here. I think you have some information who in the Commission is doing that negotiation.
So it's not in the Parliament's co-decision, but it will be something we can talk to the Commission and help you in this regard. What is in the legislation is the ice class ships. You have it in Iceland, the problem. My friends in Finland and Sweden and Estonia have it also, that in winter times you need more fuel because you need ice-breaking ships. They consume much more fuel than normal ships and that has been taken into account by an extra derogation so that you don't pay the full ETS price to take into account the specific consequence.
Of course, you know, and the Commission now is proposing to extend it to 2035. And my colleagues from those ice countries argue, of course, in 2035 it will not be any better. We have still the ice, hopefully, hopefully the climate change is not as big that we don't have ice anymore. And then we need a solution. But on the other hand, when we want to be climate neutral in 2050, some of these Nordic countries even earlier, so we need to have an answer.
And that is the challenge. You know, I explained with Norbert's cement plant, we have the ceramic sector, German chemical industry is also telling us they cannot do it. I think we need to pack everything together and see really where is the solution. And we need to take into account the special needs of every sector, of every country, but in the end it needs to fit together. If we give derogation forever for everything, everybody has a point, you know.
I never met anyone who said I can easily decarbonize, I'm ready to do it next week. Everybody has his challenge and that's why it's important to find the right balance between ambition and derogation and taking into account the problems. And you know, the most important thing is to invest in technology, in new technologies that help us to solve the problem. So when we delay and delay and delay, at some stage we will be in a bottleneck. So we need to speed up the transition by, you know, abolishing the problems that you chair mentioned and also really helping the companies to decarbonize.
And one key element is that the money shouldn't disappear. So for some member states, we have the problem that they catch the money from the industry and they put it in their normal budget. So we are fighting for giving everything back to the sector that they can really do the innovation and not lose the money and stay with the problem.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much, Peter Liese, for your report and your response. With that, we move to our next topic of our agenda, it is the public procurement. Thank you again, Peter. Public procurement matters to public services and to companies seeking opportunities across our shared market. We will now hear the Commission's presentation on the Public Procurement Act.
The Commission's September proposal brings together simpler procurement procedures and a made-in-Europe criteria, making it especially important to consider how these changes will work across the whole EEA. I invite now Ms. Ester Eva Schmidt, Deputy Head of the Public Procurement Policy Unit in DG GROW. You have the floor, please.
Wonderful, then it's all perfect. So thanks a lot for inviting me to present our newborn baby, here it is. Okay, you cannot see it, but it is, you have certainly all have it at hand. You can please start zooming up the slides. Wonderful, here we are.
Speaker 32
So a very brief entry presentation, we go directly to the first slide please. Here we are. So the reform of the public procurement rules that we have now put on the table of the legislator has two main angles: simplification and a better strategic use of public procurement. Both come together then to serve the aim of more efficient public investments. So public buyers should not be lost in procedures anymore, instead they should go straight to procuring what they need really for their needs, better quality and not losing time and efforts in very rigid and complex procedural requirements.
Our simplification has three angles: a single rulebook, so bringing all the rules together in one, much more flexible procedures for the public buyers, and a full digitalization which will also help better cross-border participation. And then the strategic, we have now identified five policy objectives, overarching policy objectives which should guide the procurement. You have the three that were already very important in the current directive: social, green and innovation, but insufficiently taken up. And you have two new ones in light of the overall geopolitical environment, which is the European on the one hand, the resilience/security on the other one. So we go straight to the next slide.
Here we have the single rulebook.
Speaker 32
So we currently have three directives on public procurement: the classic, the utilities, and the concessions directive. We propose to merge all three into the one regulation that we propose here. Plus, there is a large number of provisions on public procurement in sectoral acts, of which we propose to also take over a significant number into the new regulation so that public buyers and economic operators straight away know where to go with one single rulebook and don't need to search for the rules that actually apply to them. Why a regulation? We propose to move from a directive to a regulation in order to have really the same rules apply throughout the Union and once incorporated, the EEA obviously, because you will see at the cover page of our proposal that we mark it text with EEA relevance.
So this is not a surprise for you, I suppose. But so in order to have this real internal market throughout the territory, we think we need really the same rules everywhere and do away with the fragmentation per Member State that we currently see on the basis of the current directives. We go to the next slide. So here we have the flexible toolkit. We propose to go down from five procedures to three main procedures: an open, a dynamic, and the innovation procedure, which will not be spelled out in very, very strict detail like the current procedures are, but will consist of a modular approach where you have the two basic types: so the open procedure, one step, tenders first, and then the procedure takes its way; the dynamic procedure, which is a two-step approach.
Speaker 33
You constitute a pool of suppliers which remains open for additional suppliers to join during its validity, but then you go to this pool for the individual call-offs. In both procedures, you can in a modular way build in as a public buyer additional elements that you need or don't need, which is in particular negotiations. We propose to open up all procurement to negotiations if the public buyer deems it useful. So that's a really major novelty. So far, negotiations were only allowed in very limited circumstances.
Speaker 32
And we also make it very clear now that the selection criteria are optional. So far, the legal situation wasn't entirely unambiguous, but basically everybody used selection criteria and also where it was not needed and also often in a very disproportionate way with very, very strict entry requirements then, which were particularly detrimental to SMEs. So this is now gone. Public buyers have the clarity that they can use selection criteria but don't have to. They can also straight away go to the offers themselves.
And we also put a cap on the turnover requirements if it is used, which is much lower than before. So so far, the cap was at 200% of the contract value.
Speaker 32
...percent of the contract value, we now put the cap at 50 percent, which will help the SMEs greatly to access procurement opportunities. A third procedure, the innovation procedure, is there for the public buyer to co-create a solution which it needs to address given needs, where this is not yet identified on the market. Sorry, a call coming in. Okay. To co-create this solution together with one or several economic operators, and in phases, depending on who then can go until offering the final innovative solution.
Speaker 33
We go to the next one. This is now the second element of the simplification, the digital marketplace. Our idea is not to have one single platform for all the member states. The idea is to have the national or even local or regional platforms that exist, linked to each other, interoperable, which they are not today, so that everybody can from their own platform as a public buyer put out the procurement opportunity to the whole territory, and then the economic operator from their own platform in their own member state tender, and this then goes through the interoperability network directly to the public buyer without people needing to go physically or per email to the platform of the place where they want to tender. The digital ecosystem will also allow for a seamless evidence exchange, fully digital.
The economic operators will dispose of an electronic business wallet or another business credential tool, which itself will be linked to the national databases which contain the relevant evidence, for instance criminal records, and with one click the economic operator can then ask the business wallet to source the data in the database, to send it into the interoperability system, which will then send it on to the public buyer wherever the public buyer is. As this will be structured data, it will operate through a traffic light system which just turns green or red depending on if the requirements of the public buyer are fulfilled, therefore also doing away with translation requirements, the necessity to collect the data and then send PDFs around the world, around the Union, for every single procurement, so one click and the participation goes. The third angle is particularly relevant as a counterweight to the flexible procedures. As we now give public buyers much more flexibility up front in how they structure their procedures, we want to be able to see if everything goes by the book. So the integrity controls still need to be there.
Speaker 32
Flexibility needs to go hand in hand with increased accountability, and therefore the digital marketplace will also allow for data transmission over the whole procurement procedure, but also the lifecycle of the contract later on, so contract execution, for policymakers but also national monitoring bodies to see if everything is in order and have the appropriate safeguards against fraud, collusion, and corruption. We go to the next slide, which is also already the last. This is the strategic angle. So as I said at the beginning, the idea is now to go really steer public procurement towards quality. We have seen in the evaluation of the current framework that there is far too many awards still go to the lowest price only, and we think it is, sorry, it is high time that public buyers buy rather quality than cheap in the bad sense of the word.
Speaker 34
In order to steer procurement more towards quality, the cornerstone here is the 30% minimum weighing of quality criteria. Sorry. Sorry, I'm back, that's flu season. So, we go for 30% quality weighing in the award criteria, which can include quality in the sense of in the sense of the policy goals that we have here around the three classical ones and the two new ones. It can also be quality in the technical sense, functional requirements, quality technical characteristics.
Speaker 36
Now, on the policy goals, on top of the 30% minimum weight for quality criteria, we also have additional tools in each chapter on each of the policy considerations, some of them being mandatory, like for instance in green, the energy efficiency, or in social, the accessibility, but a lot of it also being voluntary for public buyers to use as they see fit. A word on the Buy European. Clearly, Union and also then once incorporated, EEA economic operators obviously are not concerned. For those economic operators and goods from third countries to whom we don't have international commitments, those can be excluded by public buyers. It is a voluntary framework that we make it very clear in codifying the existing case law from the Court of Justice.
This only concerns the economic operators from countries to whom we don't have international commitments on the procurement in question. And in addition to that, we have foreseen here for two delegated acts for the Commission to come in and step up the measures if needed for Union interest reasons. We can come to that in more detail in the Q and A. And I will stop here and happily take questions.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much, Mrs. Schmidt, for your presentation. And now the floor is yours for the discussion. Please, colleague Baldursdóttir.
Baldursdóttir
Thank you for your presentation. I'm just thinking and I will my question is if all companies from all 30 EEA countries be treated equally under the new public procurement rules? That's my question. Thank you.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much. Is there a request? Yeah, Nicolò, please, Nicolò.
Nikolai
Thank you, and thank you for the presentation. Just a question relating to this last slide on price-quality ratio. Because it's a normative question, this 30% quality, and there's also a discretion in defining it, as you say. So how will that work in practice? How will that translate?
I mean, if you have a 70-30 price-quality, then price will surely always win, I guess. Or how is this supposed to work?
Kastner
Yeah, thank you. I also want to point out that it would be really important to treat all 30 member states the same. And a question I have to the need from the European states, is there also a need like to have the possibility to have not only Europe first, but also national first? Like for national procurements and not only, yeah.
Norbert Lins
Thank you. No request anymore. So then I give the floor back to Ms. Schmidt for your answers, please.
Speaker 36
Yes, thank you very much. Yes, very important questions on the all 30, all 30 EEA treated equally. Yes, the answer is yes. Maybe I glossed over that a little bit quickly, so let me take a step back and go back to the basics of this. So obviously the act now, when it talks about in Article 4, the principles of procurement, Article 4.2 says public buyers shall treat economic operators originating from the Union, economic operators which are covered, equally and without discrimination.
And also the European preference chapter talks about Union and covered economic operators. But very importantly, as soon as the text is incorporated into the EEA agreement as per the usual mechanisms, wherever we say Union in this text, it will ipso facto mean EEA. Okay, it will have to be read and understood as EEA, ipso facto legally. And that means EEA economic operators will be treated precisely as Union member state ones. So yes, all 30 EEA economic operators treated absolutely equally.
While we are at member states and treating everybody inside the EEA equally, for us Europe first or Europe and covered countries first is one thing, national first is something that we don't want. It's a single market piece of legislation, and so the idea is not that suddenly people will start to give national preferences. This is precisely the opposite of what we would see as the objective of this piece of legislation, which is based on Article 114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, so it is really an internal market piece of legislation. On the BPQR, thanks a lot for the question. Yes, the 30% are a minimum.
That means public buyers would be obliged to have at least 30% non-price criteria, but obviously it can be more. It can go up to 100%. They could say I award on 100% quality only, so no price whatsoever.
Speaker 36
And we would hope that they go higher where this is appropriate. So it is a minimum, but not a fixed threshold. And obviously you also have in some sector legislation even today thresholds that go higher than that. So the 30% is really the minimum that we have here in the framework, but public buyers can go higher and also other rules could oblige to go higher.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much, Ms. Schmidt, for your presentation and now for your answer. With this, we are at the end of this topic of top seven of our agenda. And then let's move to top eight of our agenda. Our final substantive item today concerns Europe's space sector. Let me begin by congratulating Isar Aerospace and Andøya Spaceport on Spectrum's successful orbital launch on the 5th of September.
A remarkable achievement combining German engineering and Norwegian launch infrastructure and a concrete example of what cooperation between EU and EEA partners can deliver for Europe's independent access to space. I first invite Maria Fernandez Molinero, head of the Space Policy Unit in DG DEFIS. You have the floor, please.
Maria Fernandez Molinero
Okay, great. Thank you. Dear honorable members of the European Parliament and distinguished representatives of the EEA EFTA states, ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure to address you today to discuss developments in Europe's space sector. As you are all aware, Europe is entering a new phase. The geopolitical context is very challenging, technological change is accelerating and space has become more strategic than ever for security, prosperity and for resilience.
And this is why in its proposal for the next multiannual financial framework, the Commission has put forward the European Competitiveness Fund, the ECF. And as you know, the ECF is designed to strengthen Europe's capacity to invest in strategic technologies and capabilities, including through a dedicated policy window on space, defense and resilience, with a proposed envelope of 125 billion euros, expected to reach 131 billions together with the Horizon Europe program. So, of course, for our partners in the EEA EFTA states, the key question is not only the scale of Europe's ambition, but how cooperation with close and trusted third country partners can continue and can evolve in this new framework. And as you're all aware, negotiations on this file are still ongoing. The Council reached the partial general approach in June this year, and we now look forward to the European Parliament's position and to the trilogues.
Of course, from the perspective of the European Commission, it is essential that the structure, that the logic and that the level of ambition of the ECF proposal are maintained throughout the negotiations, including the budget. And this is why we see with concern the significant reductions currently being discussed in the overall size of the budget for the next multiannual financial framework, including the proposed 13% cut to the ECF.
Such reductions risk undermining critical priorities, notably resilience, preparedness, and efforts to reduce critical dependencies in strategic technologies. As regards in particular the participation of third countries in the ECF, they can participate, they will be able to participate through full or partial association in line with the objectives of the fund, which can be found in Article 3, and also in accordance with relevant international agreements or any decisions adopted under the framework of those agreements. And in this context, the EEA countries remain especially close and valued partners among the third countries. Of course, the framework for participation in Union programs is most advanced for the EEA states, reflecting the high degree of integration and of mutual trust that exists. And in the space domain, the EEA agreement remains the principal framework for their participation in EU space activities.
At the same time, as you're also aware, certain limitations may remain in areas directly linked to the Union's essential security interest. And of course, in order to ensure robust, secure, and resilient services, participation in certain space components or subcomponents, like for instance secure connectivity or in the future the Earth observation governmental service, may require specific agreements under Article 218 TFEU as well as specific provisions governing the conditions under which third countries may participate. That being said, it is important to underline that for the EEA countries, many of these agreements have already been concluded, including the recent finalization of agreements for secure connectivity and for GOVSATCOM. Now let me turn to the issue of access to space. We of course warmly welcome Norway's progress on the Andøya Spaceport.
And of course we are very happy and I take the occasion to congratulate again Isar Aerospace on their very important achievement of their first successful orbital flight. It is of course a major step forward for Norway and a very positive development for Europe's overall space capability at a time when access to space has become a strategic issue. For us, for Europe, access to space is no longer only a matter of industrial competitiveness, it's a matter of sovereignty, resilience, and security. And in today's geopolitical context, Europe must be able to rely on secure, autonomous, and trustworthy launch options. So we welcome Norway's efforts to diversify European launch capability.
And this is fully in line with our common objective of strengthening European access to space as per the recently agreed long-term vision for European space transportation, which was endorsed very recently at the International Space Summit in Seville by the Commission, by the European Space Agency, and by EU member states and ESA member states. This vision is a very important step in the future European cooperation on access to space and will guide the European action through a cohesive approach with all European public stakeholders. And in the Commission proposal for the ECF, access to space in addition becomes a standalone space component. You can see this in Article 65, structured around three main pillars. On the one hand, or first of all, we have the procurement and aggregation of launch services for institutional needs.
Then there is the innovation for the next generation of launchers. And thirdly, the support to critical Union-based ground infrastructure. In case of the launch of security-sensitive Union space assets, the essential security interest of the Union and of the member states must be fully safeguarded. And this is why the default approach proposed in the ECF is that launches of these security-sensitive Union assets take place from the territory of the Union.
But let me stress again that this does not affect the launch of national space assets, it does not affect the launch of private space assets, and it does not affect the launch of Union space assets that are not security-sensitive. For third countries, launching security-sensitive assets may be envisaged on the basis of an international agreement and as a general rule in justified exceptional circumstances. I'd like to briefly add that discussions in the Council are currently moving in the direction of possibly not requiring the condition of justified exceptional circumstances in order to launch these Union security-sensitive assets from EEA countries, while maintaining in any case the requirement for an international agreement. I will stop here and I'm of course available for any questions you may have. Thank you.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much, Ms. Fernandez Bolinero. Then we move to Andrea Jaime, who is Sales Director for Europe and Institutional Relations at Isar Aerospace, joining us remotely. You have the floor, please.
Andrea Jaime
Thank you very much. I hope you hear me well. Dear President, Chairman, dear distinguished participants, thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to this important discussion. And by the way, thank you very much for the congratulations on our launch. Also, thank you, Maria, from the European Commission.
And as has already been mentioned earlier today, this EEA agreement is becoming increasingly relevant, and I would argue increasingly critical to Europe's competitiveness, resilience, and especially strategic sovereignty. My name is Andrea Jaime, as you presented, and I'm Sales Director at Isar Aerospace. Isar Aerospace is a European launch service provider headquartered in Germany, but launching from Norway. Our company operates across both the EU and the EEA, and thus making us a practical example of this close interdependence that exists within Europe's space ecosystem and why today's discussion is so important. So we can go to the next slide.
Speaker 41
I don't know if you're seeing the slides anymore. While they come up, it's okay. I just want to mention... you can do another click. Yes, perfect. So space is no longer a niche industry.
It basically affects all of us in our daily lives. Communications, navigation, weather forecasting, emergency response, honestly all depends today on space assets. And in fact, every major industry is becoming increasingly reliant on space-derived data and connectivity. Also, important to mention that space is becoming a critical domain for defense and security. And for EU, EEA, and NATO nations, space capabilities are increasingly essential for reconnaissance, communications, situational awareness, and military operations.
So those countries that can build, launch, and operate these capabilities will definitely capture a significant economic and strategic advantage. Now if we go to the next slide, because indeed to capture all this data from space that we need for our day-to-day life, for our society, in fact, I want my kids to live the Europe that I'm living today and even better and not worse, to capture this data, we need to access to space.
We need to put satellite and those sensors into space. Look at launches in 2023. US launched last year close to 200 times. China, Russia, Iran close or more than 100 times. Europe launched just eight times.
And I like to say here that, and you all know this, when you're not at the table, you're on the menu. So definitely there is a lot that we can do here. Because none of these capabilities that we have here, not all these sensors, not all these satellites that we can build today, well, they become useless if we cannot put them into orbit. Sovereign access to space is therefore not just an economic issue, it's also resilience and a security issue. So the challenge today is not proving that the technology works.
We have been in space, we're putting satellites in space, but the challenge is actually doing it at an industrial capacity and that we as Europeans are able to deliver it at scale. So we can go to the next slide. Our ambition, and I think we have proven also with our flight past month, that is bigger than just building a launch vehicle. Because we're building the manufacturing, the testing, and all the operational infrastructure around that we in Europe need to have this long-term European space capability. Isar Aerospace was founded in 2018, just three students out of university, and today we managed to raise more than 800 million euros from private investors, most of these private investors European, by the way, which many thought this was not possible to raise in Europe.
And our capabilities are to bring more than one ton to orbit using our own launch vehicle Spectrum. So we reached orbit faster and by the way with less capital than other comparable launch company. So we have proven that Europe can build competitive launch technology. Now honestly the next step is scaling production and scaling launch operations. And from the headquarters I am today, we are going to be able to produce and hopefully then launch up to 40, so 4-0 launch vehicles per year.
This is really far from the 200 that the US is launching per year, but it's certainly an increase of these eight launches that we had last year in Europe. Because honestly resilience is not just created with one single launch. Resilience is created by repeatable, reliable, sorry, and scalable access to space. We can go to the next slide just to mention that Isar Aerospace have done something that many thought it was not possible. So we have proven what Europeans are capable of, and it is to have the full IPs, the full vertical integration in-house.
We do the entire design, the entire production, the entire testing, and also launching in-house. And that corresponds to more than 90% of the entire value chain. And I want to mention, because this is very special and some members of the European Parliament when they visited us they mentioned that it was quite relevant, is that out of these less than 10% where we work with external suppliers, more than 95% of that 10% is European as well. So we're really putting a strong effort to be sovereign, to be autonomous within Europe and to have the minimum non-European dependencies in our offering, in our service. So we can go to the next slide.
Indeed, on the 5th of September, we launched the mission Onward and Upward. It was the first commercial launch service provider in Europe that launched from continental Europe, not from the EU, but from an EEA EFTA country, Norway.
So honestly, the question is not anymore whether European launch companies can build competitive launch technology. This question has now been answered. We successfully reached orbit, we even deployed satellites. By the way, two other companies in the world ever in history has reached orbit and delivered the satellite to the the expected orbit on their second flight. So this is very remarkable and a historic flight, not only for us as a company, but for Europe, but globally as well.
So the science itself and the technology is not the bottleneck, but as I said before, the bottleneck is this go industrial. To industrialize, to not get to orbit once, but to actually create this long-term technological, economic, and security resilience for Europe. And in case nobody, or not all of you saw the launch, since I think this is also an outcome of all our work in Europe, also the work of every one of you that allowed companies like Isar Aerospace to be so successful, I would like to also share the video of our first flight. So we can go to the next slide. And I think you maybe need to do a click.
Yes, so as I said before, the next chapter is not anymore the technology demonstration, but industrialization at scale. At Isar, we have opened a new headquarter in Germany, and that's the biggest European rocket factory where this 90% of the entire value chain as I mentioned is done here. We are doubling our test capabilities in Sweden, and we're launching from Norway, and soon also from Canada, by the way. The European demand for space infrastructure is growing at an unprecedented pace. You know all these programs, you're all familiar with these ones because those are within the EU space program: Galileo, Copernicus, the SSA program, and the ones that are coming: IRIS², the EOGS, the LEO PNTs, others.
All this represents that more than 500 satellites, way more, investment of more than hundreds of billions of euros in public funding, and not to mention all the hundreds of commercial satellites that Europe's highly capable space industry intends to launch all in the coming years until 2030. So the conclusion is very simple: Europe needs to significantly scale up its launch capacity.
And remember I shared like we in Europe we only fly eight times last year compared to the US which flew 200 times, showing a bottleneck. So let me tell you, the bottleneck within access to space for us Europeans is not the demand, there is enough demand you see here in this in this slide, it's not the technology, we already reached orbit once, it's not even the manufacturing capability. Honestly, the critical constraint for us in Europe is the launch infrastructure, and in particular access to launch sites. You can have because you can have the most advanced rocket lying on the ground but if it stays on the ground you have nothing. It literally has no value.
Today in Europe we only have two launch sites that are operational, one is in French Guiana, this is an EU overseas region, I mean you I'm sure you know, and the one in Norway, which is an EEA EFTA member state. And I want to mention that French Guiana currently supports unfortunately a limited launch cadence of around a dozen launches per year. Which if you remember the number of satellites that we need to launch in the coming years, this is clearly insufficient to meet Europe's growing institutional, commercial and defense needs. So in Norway we're really working closely with Andøya Spaceport to enable a cadence of 20 to 30 launches per year. And this will help to strengthen European independent access to space.
So the default inclusion of the EEA and EFTA member states, including Norway, in all European defense and space programs, I would say is not a matter anymore of preference. It's in fact essential for preserving Europe's strategic autonomy, for driving economic development and for protecting the way of life that we have today and security that we as Europeans enjoyed and I hope to enjoy for many years and many generations in the future. We therefore urge the member states to reflect on this in the ongoing negotiations that are happening on the EU Space Act, on the European Competitiveness Fund, Maria mentioned some some articles, for example I would like that you pay attention on article 50 and 65.5 of the ECF because honestly ensuring security of Europe also benefits from Norwegian, from EEA assets in this case because Europe is stronger united and countries like Norway are critical part of our European value chain. Today Norway is the only operational continental spaceport for orbital launches and honestly as a NATO member itself Norway has its direct interest to become a stronger launch and space capability partner with with the EU. Because and I want to finish with this sentence, building resilience in space is a European effort and Norway in close cooperation with Germany as we're headquartered is one of the countries that is helping us helping Europe making it possible.
Thank you very much and I'm also of course open to any questions that any would have on the floor. Thank you for the opportunity once again.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much Andrea and with this we now give the floor to Jon Vidar Håre, Director of Corporate Development at Andøya Spaceport, also joining us remotely. Please you have the floor.
Jon Vidar Haar
Yes, good afternoon and thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to present Andøya Spaceport. Honorable members of the EU Parliament, distinguished members of the EEA member states, Mr. Chairman. So, there has been two very good presentations today. Ms. Molinero and Andrea made it clear why Europe needs space launch capabilities and why it is important to include Norway in EU efforts to get better and more access to space. So, I will present our Norwegian strategic infrastructure located in Andøya, Norway.
Next slide, please. So, Andøya Spaceport is a part of the Andøya Space Group. The Andøya Space Group exists since the 1960s. We have been launching more than 1,200 sounding rockets out of Andøya for atmospheric research, for ionospheric research, and also we are conducting on behalf of customers different systems testing for military operations, including for European customers such as the German Navy. Obviously, the new missile systems, including those that go faster than sound, are important customers of ours.
The last business area that we have developed is the Spaceport, and I will go on to talk about it. Next slide, please. So, Andøya is located in the very north of Norway, so it's really the northern part of Europe. It's a small island, and today we have quite a good infrastructure on that island. So, even though the location is really in the Arctic, there's quite a lot of infrastructure.
We have road access to mainland Europe and we have, as I said, a suborbital launch site, a good 3-kilometer runway airport, and a new launch complex for orbital launches. Next slide, please. So, the location is important if you want to build a spaceport. Norway and Andøya is really the ideal place to do so in Europe. There are not many other places you can actually do it in a good way.
So, you have low air traffic, low maritime traffic. You can launch over uninhabited areas, over water, which is really a key. You have good logistics at the launch site and you are quite close to the rest of Europe. A couple of days by the road and you get there. And this is how also our customer, primary customer Isar Aerospace, has solved their logistical problems is to actually get this road access to mainland Europe, which is really important.
I can also say that in terms of other maritime-based assets such as oil fields and oil rigs, there are none outside Andøya. So this is also a really, really strong point in favor of Andøya as the primary launch site for Europe. Next slide, please. So, as Andrea also was saying, I mean, continental Europe is lacking launch capacity, right? Europe has been launching from French Guiana.
Andrea mentioned something like 12 launches per year from French Guiana. They have an ambition of going up to 30, but obviously with a strong emphasis on the already on the institutional launch vehicles that are launching from French Guiana, which are Ariane 6 and Vega.
And we know now that the capacity of French Guiana will quite soon be reached. This is one of the reasons why we think that Andøya can play a part in the European resilience by proposing a European launch site from the continent. From Andøya, we can propose as much as 30 launches every year. And I mean, this is what we currently have in our license. We believe that in the future we could go even higher.
Given our location, it is possible to reach, I would say, even 40 or 50 launches every year. We could also have multiple customers from Europe. So, I mean, we are currently looking at different opportunities for this. And I really think that the need is shown in this map, where you see that today most of space launches are happening elsewhere in the world. Next slide, please.
So, the launch that we saw on the 5th of September was obviously an incredible event for all of us. And I congratulate, of course, Isar Aerospace with its incredible achievement. But also from the spaceport side, it was a good achievement. I mean, we have been conducting building up the spaceport for many years. We started out with the feasibility study back in 2018.
And we have been conducting, I'd say, launch operations since the first launch in 2025. And today, we have reached many launch operations. We have had seven launch operations ongoing this year. Only one of them reached an actual launch. But everything that happens before the launch itself is conducted by the spaceport and has been conducted successfully, including clearance of areas, safety procedures, and so on.
Next slide, please. Just to make you aware of what it actually takes to build a spaceport. I mean, location is very important, but it also takes a crew of highly trained and skilled personnel. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of well-working systems and good coordination, both locally and regionally, to make a launch happen. You need to be able to clear a quite vast maritime area for ships.
You need to be able to clear the air of aircrafts. This requires coordination also on a European level. And you need, obviously, to clear the areas on land. And we have people who are doing that, who have this as their job, and they have experience. Not many places in the world actually have the same experience that we have in conducting such kind of operations.
So, next slide, please. In addition to also doing clearance operations, we are responsible for doing accurate weather predictions, surveying, of course, all the areas, and also tracking the launch vehicle accurately and providing the data into the flight safety cell where the launch can be interrupted if something out of plan happens.
So this is also part of our, our know-how. And we believe that this is, you know, everything has to be developed further. To go one slide on, please. The issue we now have obviously is that we are trying to scale up. And as you may know, scaling up for a small company is not easy.
We have, as I said, been conducting a few operations this year, but we are not at all at a level where we can, you know, easily justify high expenses to build new infrastructure that we need to be able to conduct the number of launches that ISAR would like and that our customers and our stakeholders require. Next slide, please. So here you see a photo of the current spaceport. I mean, it's beautiful. It's really nice, but as you can see, there's one launchpad.
It's built and dedicated to the, to ISAR Aerospace to their specifications. We have a power station and we have a quite a small AIT building for integrating the launch vehicle. And in the, in the, a little bit further down, you can see a telemetry site. And then we have a launch and mission control center in which we are currently. It's a barrack-based facility.
So obviously the need for some permanent infrastructure is really there. So when we talked about earlier here hearing that, you know, the, in the European competitiveness fund, there is some funding for critical Union-based infrastructure, obviously we are interested and hope that this would also be possible to access for Norwegian companies and from Norwegian side. Next slide, please. So here is a render of how the next launchpad, what it could look like when, when we build the next launchpad. As you may know, we received some funding from the Norwegian government last week to, or, or two weeks ago to, to, on the Norwegian government budget to build the next launchpad in Andøya.
This is really good news, but as I said, one launchpad is not enough. We need more critical infrastructure. We need to safeguard the area better than it is today. And, and we need to, yeah, get all, get all the processes and people trained and everything in place to scale up the capacity to, from 20 to 30 launches Andreas was mentioning. We, we believe we could go even above that.
Okay, then I would like to end my presentation with a short video to show you a little bit more of the beautiful launch site that we have in Norway.
Thank you very much. So I'm open to any questions obviously if you have.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much, Jørn, and now it's the possibility to ask questions or give a comment, Ms. Baldursdóttir.
Yes, thank you. Thank you all for your presentation. They were very interesting. But my question is for the representative of the European Commission. Iceland already participates in European space programs such as Copernicus and EGNOS, but what opportunities do you see for smaller EEA countries like Iceland to play a greater role in future European space initiatives?
Norbert Lins
I would, sorry, sorry to disturb, to interrupt you, I would like to collect some questions and then I give you the floor back. Sorry. Ms. Sundnes.
Sundnes
Thank you. And thank you for three very good, good presentations. I had the opportunity to, to visit ESA space last week in, in Munich, and it's quite impressive, the, the production that you have there. And I'm very happy that, that there was a very successful launch at Andøya. So, so that's, that's good.
I just wanted to ask Maria Fernandez Molinero about what you said, that the Commission is thinking about including the EEA countries in the, in the wording when it comes to launches and dropping the "only in justified exceptional circumstances" from a third country. Could you maybe say a little bit about the process of that, when can we expect to, to see if the Commission succeeds in their goal of including the EEA countries? I think it's a very important signal for us also when the Norwegian government is very committed to, to making sure that Andøya as a space, spaceport is, is a facility that we want to see more of in the European space industry. Thank you.
Kastner
Yeah, thank you for a very interesting presentations. I have a question about the competitiveness. Can you maybe give us a number, how high is the price per payload from a European rocket compared to the US ones? And just a little fun fact, even Liechtenstein has satellites now in the space. I mean, not our satellites, but our frequencies.
So I really hope that the cluster will be built up in Liechtenstein as well. We already have a big cluster together with Switzerland in the, in the optical treatment industry and also research institutes for sensors and stuff like that. So I hope it will increase, yeah.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much. Does anyone else like to take the floor? This is not the case, then I would like to give the floor to Maria Fernandez Molinero, please.
Maria Fernandez Molinero
Thank you, Chair. So, on the question, the specific question about Iceland, as I said before, as for other EEA countries, they can be associated to the ECF, to the Competitiveness Fund, through a full or partial association, and this is foreseen in the ECF, and this is done in accordance with relevant international agreements or specific decisions that are adopted under the framework of those agreements. And so for EEA countries in particular, the framework for participation remains the EEA agreement, which is why those, the EEA countries, are those that are most associated, or that are more closely associated, let's say, to our programs. So the same applies for Iceland, of course, if there's interest from Iceland to follow this path, this is possible already now, and it will still be possible under the Competitiveness Fund as of 2028. And I mean, we've seen recent examples now in relation to secure connectivity and to GOVSATCOM.
And then there was a second question about the removal, so about Article 65(5) of the ECF, which is the article especially dedicated to access to space, and paragraph 5 of this article covers in particular the default territory of launch of the Union satellites which are security-sensitive. So the scope is very reduced. It basically applies to our Galileo satellites at the moment. And the Commission proposal foresees that the default rule is that these satellites have to be launched from the territory of the Union, but that on the basis of such justified exceptional circumstances and through an international agreement, they can be launched outside of the territory of the Union. This is something that some of you might already know has already happened.
It happened in 2023 when there was no available European launch capacity, there was no available European launcher capable of launching our Galileo satellites, which are very heavy, from the EU, and so we had to procure ad hoc launches with SpaceX from the US territory. So what the ECF does in this new Article 65(5) is to basically give continuity to the existing regime. Now, what I mentioned earlier about the removal of this condition, the exceptional justified circumstances, is not an initiative of the Commission. It's something that has been proposed by the Irish presidency very recently because this article, Article 65(5), together with Article 50 on the defense industrial programs, have been left out from the partial general approach that was reached under the Cypriot presidency last June. And so this is still under discussion.
I can say that for the Commission, this would be an acceptable compromise solution, the fact that for those countries that are most closely associated to the Union, so the EEA-EFTA countries, that we wouldn't have this requirement of the exceptional circumstances anymore, but only the requirement of the signature of an international agreement. I hope that this was clear enough.
Norbert Lins
Thank you very much. If there were no questions towards the two other speakers, then I would like to thank you again for your time, for your presentation. This was very impressive. And with this, we are at the end of our today's agenda. And we resume tomorrow at 9:30 in this room again with Nikolai Astrup then in the chair.
Colleagues, after discussing how to put satellites into orbit, we now face a slightly less ambitious transport challenge: getting everyone to dinner by boat. I'm assured that no countdown is required. For those attending the dinner, please follow the protocol team's instructions for the boat transfer. I look forward to continuing our conversation this evening. Thank you very much for today.
Speaker 50
And with this, I close our meeting for today. So colleagues, please let's do a family photo today in front of the podium.