The future law Science is currently a draft awaiting processing. Since he entered Congress on February 22, is in the metaphorical parliamentary fridge, the limbo in which the majority of the Chamber Table keeps those norms that do not meet the desired conditions to start the approval phase. There are no political motivations, at the moment, for a law so publicized by the president to be in a state of conservation. The reason is merely functional: there is such a legislative overload that the parties with fewer deputies have asked the PSOE to slow down and give time to complete the procedures already started. So the text accumulates six weekly extensions of the amendment period.
However, there are groups that have taken a look at the document. Parliamentary sources from those groups have informed The Newspaper of Spain that before the qualification of the Congress, on February 22, the Government introduced a striking novelty on one of the stars of the norm: the Spanish Space Agency. From managing it only the Ministry of Science to managing it Science together with Defense.
✈?The #PERTEAerospace will promote the transfer of knowledge in the aerospace sector
?Generate competitive technological capabilities in Spanish industry to provide innovative solutions to challenges such as climate change and global security#RecoveryPlan pic.twitter.com/2qM3mR5djF
— Ministry of Science and Innovation (@CienciaGob) March 29, 2022
It is a novelty that is closely related to the new times, to which the Government wants to adhere as a result of the war in Ukraine. In the different speeches made by the president, Pedro Sánchez, two trends have become clear that fully affect the Ministry of Margarita Robles: the increase in the budget to reach 2% of GDP, as proposed by NATO; and the sending of weapons to the invaded country to defend itself against brutal Russian aggression. The socialist leader has also opted to approve the new national security law as soon as possible. Last Wednesday, in Congress, Sánchez was blunt: “Our security is threatened.”
The influence of Homeland Security
The Ministry of Science opened the public hearing process for the preliminary draft on January 18. He closed it on the 26th. This is stated on the website of the department directed by Diana Morant. In the text exposed to consultations and contributions it appears that the future Spanish Space Agency will depend only on this ministry.
The Council of Ministers converted the document into a bill on February 18. At that time the invasion of the Russian Federation in Ukraine had not taken place, although the world held its breath because a contingent of 200,000 units had gathered at the border. It was about time.
Morant appeared before the press that day in Moncloa, precisely to explain the novelties of the text, especially the increase in investment in R+D+i. In the note released by the Government there was an allusion to the ‘Spanish Space Agency’ (sic) and to the creation planned for 2023. Nothing more.
But in the law, both in the preamble and in a specific additional provision, was the novelty. Thus, already in the preamble, the Government states that “line of action nº19 of the ESN (National Security Strategy) aims to ‘create the Spanish Space Agency with a component dedicated to National Security to direct the effort in space matters, efficiently coordinate the different national bodies with responsibilities in the space sector, and unify international collaboration and coordination.
This inverted commas did not appear in the draft, whose process culminated a month earlier. The time that passes between January 18 and February 18 it is the one that is open to the changes suggested by the ministries. The time in which the bill becomes a bill, ready for review by Congress.
The preamble draws the outline in which the Agency will move. The affiliation to the Ministries of Science and Defense can be seen here. The inclusion of the Department of Robles does not seem very forced if one looks at the reference to the tasks of the entity, among which is “effectively coordinating the activities around the space field, both from the point of view of its development technology and the use of space in areas such as securityearth observation, geolocation, communications, etc”.
Security. It is the key word, the one that explains the relationship with that line of action number 19 of the Strategy, approved at the end of 2021. “Security of Global Common Spaces” is the title to which line 19 belongs; are cyberspace, the sea and “air and outer space“. It is, therefore, a competence of the Ministry of Defense.
Regulatory changes
Giving a dimension of national security to the Space Agency logically entails regulatory changes, embodied in the third additional provision of the draft of the future Science Law. The creation and objectives are articulated in three points.
On 4/4/1949, the Washington Treaty was signed in the US capital, which gave rise to the birth of the #NATO.
Today, April 4, we commemorate NATO Day in the year that we will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the accession of ?? to the @BORN and the summit #NATO in Madrid #MadridNATO2022. pic.twitter.com/6onvRNHcES
– Ministry of Defense (@Defensagob) April 4, 2022
Defense and Science will manage it for the fulfillment of general purposes such as “the promotion, execution and development of research, technological development and innovation in the field of space”. The text that lands in Congress provides these objectives: “the security and defense national, operations in the outer field, satellite applications for the development of departmental competencies”, etc. More are listed, such as “the technological impact and economic of the industry associated with the design, construction, operation and maintenance” of the satellites or “the promotion of the national space industry”. None of the latter was shown in the preliminary draft in point 1 of the additional provision.
The 2 does not experience variations, on the financing, but the 3 does, which is the one that shields the participation of the Ministry of Defense. The draft is limited to setting a deadline for the creation of the body, one year. The project adds: “the balanced presence of the different ministerial departments with competences in the matter in the governing bodies of the same”.