Landsats Aff

AT: ESA CP – No Solvency – Funding

ESA budget freeze prevents spending
Messier 10 (Doug, communications expert, Parabolic Arc, 6/9, http://www.parabolicarc.com/2010/06/09/esa-grapples-tight-budgets-dlr-escapes-budget-cuts/, accessed 7-9-11, CH)

Spaceflight Now reports that ESA is going through some belt tightening as it deals with the global recession: The European Space Agency’s spending freeze is not delaying missions yet, but all options will be on the table as the cash-strapped agency prepares for even tighter budgets in 2011 and 2012, the organization’s top financial official said. Ludwig Kronthaler, ESA’s director of resources management, said the space agency should have enough money to avoid a moratorium on contract signings this year. But more serious consequences may be in store for the next two years. “For 2010, I don’t see a huge problem in the budget,” Kronthaler said. “But it’s clear we have to prepare ourselves that 2011 and 2012 might be tighter.” ESA is freezing spending for 2010 and 2011 at last year’s level of 3.35 billion euros, or $4 billion. The space agency’s budget remains higher, but ESA’s expenditures will be stretched out through contract modifications.

AT: ESA CP – No Solvency – Refugees

Won’t solve genocide—EU not motivated to provide assistance to aid refugees of ethnic conflict
Ezra 4 (Esther, Doctorate Candidate for Degree of Philosophy, Ludwig-Maximiliens U, 4/16, http://edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de/2680/1/Ezra_Esther.pdf, accessed 7-9-11, CH)

In the beginning of negotiations on February 11, 2000 the Presidency listed the articles in the Treaty of the European Union (TEU) where a shift to qualified majority was thought necessary. These included sensitive policy areas such as taxation, social policy, common commercial policy, visas, asylum, and migration 548 On February 22, 2000 it was argued . That in the field of Justice and Home Affairs a distinction should be made between asylum, visas, and immigration and provisions on police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters (TEU Title VI). The Presidency argued that it would be difficult to cooperate in the field of criminal matters, as this is an area of great political sensitivity to all the Member States: “This is a field to which the Community decision-making process does not apply and the Presidency considers that in these circumstances it would be very difficult at this point to contemplate a move to qualified majority voting in this area for the adoption of basic legislation” 549 With regard to asylum, however, the Presidency was . rather optimistic, suggesting that decisions in asylum could be governed by a qualified majority procedure 550 Moreover, it suggested that Member States should identify areas . within specific articles of the Treaty of the European Union such as Articles 62 and 63 (referring to control of crossing internal and external borders, asylum, and immigration policy) which could move to qualified majority vote after the entry into force of the new Treaty 551 After several months of debate, by April 2000, negotiations among EU . Member States were able to reach the point where, “a measure of openness has been expressed in relation extending QMV for certain matters under Title IV of the TEU on visas, asylum and immigration” 552 In September, however, it became evident that member States had gradually changed their opinion about the extensive use of qualified majority voting in the decision making process. Indeed, the Presidency presented only a few amendments with respect to asylum policy, replacing the idea of a qualified majority with the co-decision procedure 553 Thus, most measures on asylum and migration . remained under unanimity rule but with the possibility of being decided by the codecision procedure. The result was that qualified majority voting applied, as before Nice, only to matters related to visa policy and perhaps with regard to Article 63 (2) (b) that is, sharing of the burden between Member States in the care of refugees and displaced persons. On October 26, 2000, the latter option was also abolished. Thus the Council continues to require unanimous voting on all asylum issues with the exception of visa policy 554 The reasons for this more restrictive change most likely lie in the refusal of member States to give up their veto power in asylum matters. Though Member States originally declared their intention to reform European decision-making processes to accommodate the coming enlargement, they continued to cling to the unanimity rule in a number of areas they viewed crucial to their national sovereignty. One of the major proponents of this view was Germany 555 , who argued that a move to qualified majority would jeopardize its national interests. This claim was based on the German experience on Yugoslavia; whereas Germany admitted the vast majority of the refugees froYugoslavia (350.000 Bosnians and 160.000 Kosovars) 556 , other EU Member States have shown little interest to share the burden with it by taking on some of its refugees. Not surprisingly, then, Germany refused to relinquish its veto in the area of asylum and immigration policy.

AT: ESA CP – No Solvency – ESA Corruption

ESA corrupted—ulterior motives, funding schemes
Booker 11 (Christopher, EU columnist, The Telegraph, 1/22, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8276191/The-costs-of-the-EUs-Galileo-satellite-system-are-still-skyrocketing.html, accessed 7-9-11, CH)

The offence of Mr Berry Smutny, the now-suspended CEO of a German firm which has a £500 million contract to build 14 satellites for the Galileo global positioning system, was that in 2009, according to Wikileaks, he told senior Americans at a private dinner party that it was a “stupid idea”, intended only to serve French interests at the expense of EU taxpayers. This was only a hint – and even this was enough to get him suspended – that the real purpose of Galileo, the EU’s rival to the American GPS system, is quite different from what the world has been told. The cover story for Galileo, from the time of its launch in 2000, was that it was a civil project, largely to be paid for by private investors, who could then charge its users. GPS, on the other hand, is funded by US taxpayers as an openly military project, which is why its spin-off uses, such as to the owners of sat-navs, are free. It was hoped that Galileo could be paid for through a satellite-based road-charging scheme across the EU. But in 2007, after it became clear that this was not viable, the private partners pulled out, landing the entire, ever-rising bill on EU taxpayers.