Meteorology, Meteorological, History

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HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p43.

HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p41.

p42.

Meteorological Service, wrote to EUMETSAT Director John Morgan. He reiterated French support for what he insisted on calling the GOES back-up. He also supported firmly the statement made by the French delegation and repeated that France would pay no contributions to the GOES back-up/ADC programme until the matter was resolved. Then Lebeau wrote that there might be a way forward.

The next opportunity to discuss the issue was at the PAC meeting held in September 1989.

Clearly, in the intervening months lawyers had been combing through the Convention (see extract). The basis of the French argument was that the Annex to the Convention clearly stated that the MOP comprised one operational satellite and one that was not in operation. To have two satellites operational at the same time constituted a new programme. The difficulty arose from the French perspective because the Convention itself makes specific reference to the Annex. Any change to the Annex had to be viewed as a change to the main text of the Convention itself and therefore needed unanimity.

The Secretariat argued that the Annex could be read as a minimum definition of the MOP, and that there was nothing to stop two satellites being operated given the value of the data to Europe.

The UK said its view was pragmatic not legalistic and that it considered moving Meteosat-3 to be an intelligent use of resources. The Nordic countries agreed.

Manfred Kleppel, from Germany, said he had to accept that a literal reading of the Convention and the Annex led to problems, but he thought the Annex itself could be subject to interpretation. Germany's position, he said, remained the same.

Bizzarro Bizzarri from Italy said that the French interpretation was correct, but argued that the Council's actions were not against the spirit of the Convention. He did not think that a legal framework to satisfy French objections could be developed rapidly enough to implement ADC in a timely fashion. France was adamant that a principle was at stake. The minutes record that Claude Pastre, "felt that the arguments presented by the other delegates were indicating that it was not opportune to respect the Convention in this instance."

Impasse. The Chairman, André Junod, summed up. All the delegates understood the French position, and, presumably, the French understood the other delegates. The position was:

. France had a legitimate point of principle about unanimity.

. France wanted to see a new scale of contribution based on GNP (a point mentioned by the French delegate during the tenth Council meeting in June 1989).

The minutes say that at this point the delegates held an informal discussion. Being informal, the discussion is not recorded. The conclusion, however, was a new Resolution that performed a delicate balancing act between legal interpretations and enabled a unanimous vote.

The new Resolution contained the following addition:

"Considering that Art. 5.2 (a) V of the Convention enables the Council to decide by unanimous vote

(PAGE 43 is a table that extract's information about the foundation of EUMETSAT. The text of the history continues on PAGE 44)

SEE ALSO| |

1. Meteorologists shed political shackles, a review of Declan Murphy's history of the first 25 years of EUMETSAT (2011), by Helen Gavaghan.

2. An interview in 2010 with Dr Tillman Mohr, a special advisor to the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organisation, in Science, People & Politics.

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Contents

Preface

Foreword

Introduction

Ch.1

Ch.2

Ch.3

Ch.4

Ch.5

Ch.6

Ch.7

Ch.8

The History of EUMETSAT is available in English and French from EUMETSAT©.
First printed 2001. ISBN 92-9110-040-4

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