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page 54
enabled them to break a stalemate between supporters of centralised versus distributed facilities.
EUMETSAT's shift to GNP funding
In the first half of 1991, the ongoing debates about the MTP and its ground segment were overshadowed by a funding crisis.
The controversy arose from the fact that the Resolutions establishing the transition programme and MSG's preparatory work called on members to contribute on a scale related to their Gross National Product (GNP). This was a change from the contribution scale for the MOP.
The delegates had already agreed in December 1989 that EUMETSAT's General Budget covering core functions, such as the cost of the Secretariat, would be paid for on a scale of contribution determined by GNP, but application of the same principle to major future programmes was not as straightforward.
Although the issue might seem arcane, it isn't. The adoption of a scale of contribution related to GNP is, in effect, a declaration by EUMETSAT that it is an operational meteorological satellite organisation, rather than a research and development agency.
The scale of contribution for the MOP had been calculated according to ESA's rules. As is usual for ESA's projects, members negotiated what proportion of the costs they would pay. As a quid pro quo, and in line with ESA's industrial policy, Member States received industrial contracts roughly in proportion to their contribution. The reasoning behind this policy was to encourage the development of a nation's innovative industrial expertise in line with its investment.
Almost from the first, EUMETSAT's delegates had debated whether its future programmes should be funded in the same way. Most of the larger countries were paying contributions in excess of a scale determined by GNP and so were paying a disproportionately high percentage of the costs. Yet all members were benefiting from improvements in weather forecasting. In other words, they were arguing that the benefit of EUMETSAT membership was the meteorological product, not the research and development associated with the satellite or instrumentation.
Some northern countries seized on the meteorological emphasis as a powerful argument in support of their view that EUMETSAT should pursue the idea of polar orbiting meteorological satellites as vigorously as it did geostationary systems.
The countries making smaller contributions to the MOP were, in general, against the idea of a shift to a contribution scale based on GNP. Mainly, their opposition was because the change would increase their percentage contribution to programmes, in some cases significantly (see table 2, page 49). Given that the National Meteorological Services were not always well funded, it was hard for delegates to win national approval for such increases.
A second argument made by the larger countries and the Secretariat was that contributions based on a scale related to GNP would make it easier for EUMETSAT to insist on competitive tendering rather than being constrained by the need to ensure a certain value of contracts were awarded to one country. In one estimate the Secretariat put the cost saving resulting from competitive tendering at 25 per cent.
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