European Union

The official opening meeting of the EU-funded Twinning project in the Space area took place on 22 April 2008. The ceremony was held in the premises of the Delegation of the European Commission to Ukraine with, in particular, following participants:

Ian Boag, Ambassador, Head of the Delegation of the European Commission to Ukraine

Jean-Paul Véziant, Ambassador of France in Ukraine

Reinhard Schäfers, Ambassador of Germany in Ukraine

Timofei Motrenko, Head of the Main Department of Civil Service of Ukraine

Youri Alexeev, General Director , NSAU

Ludwig Baumgarten, Director of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR)

The Twinning project, “Boosting Ukrainian Space Cooperation with the European Union”, is conceived with the objective of closing the gap between Ukraine and the European Union in the Space sector, and deepening the cooperation and development in matters of legislation, sciences and industry.

This project is the first one related to the Space sector in the history of the Twinning European programme, an EU institution-building initiative originally aimed at candidate countries but now extended to Ukraine. The project is funded by the European Commission and is worth € 1.5 million.

The main task of this Twinning project is to train Ukrainian specialists in following areas:

European legislation in the Space sector

French experience for redesigning Space sector

European Union guidelines for standards in area of high technology an d others

As part of the implementation of the project, visits of Ukrainian specialists to CNES and DLR are planned, as well as to European industrial partners involved in the Space industry.

The European Commission selected a Franco-German consortium made of the French Space Agency (CNES), and the German Space Agency (DLR), as partner to NSAU in the Twinning project.

The preparation of the Ukrainian-European Twinning project in the Space area lasted almost two years. The contract concerning the Twinning project was signed and endorsed on November 14th, 2007.

Project leaders were appointed: from the Ukrainian side, E.I. Kouznietsov, Deputy General Director, NSAU; from the European side, P. Frisch, Advisor, Strategy and International Relations Directorate, CNES