“ shows that space in Europe is taken more and more seriously by more and more countries, and that's very clearly a positive result regarding the evolution of the institutional project,” Lemaitre said. Likewise, it is positive that the increased contribution was not only provided by Italy, France and Germany, but also by Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands. Lemaitre saw it as a positive sign that nearly all programmes will get sufficient funding and that the money overall increased. The scientific programmes will get the biggest slice of the cake, with some €3.1 billion(19%), followed by space transportation with €2.8 billion (17%) and €2.7 billion for human and robotic exploration (16%). Germany, France and Italy remain the top contributors, paying €3.5 billion €3.2 billion and €3.8 billion, respectively. The agreed budget is a compromise between the ESA's proposed €18.5 billion and a minimum of €16.5 billion. Over the past months, both ESA and the EU have been calling for European countries to raise their game in space, saying it is a critical domain for European autonomy and resilience, science and industrial competitiveness. The ministerial council meeting in Paris this week set out ambitions to catch up with the US space agency NASA and China’s National Space Administration. "This budget is a positive result, which will keep Europe in the space race, but the increased contribution to the programmes doesn't put us on the same level as China or the US," whose budget is six or seven times that of ESA, said Eurospace secretary general Olivier Lemaitre. The European Space Agency (ESA) ministerial council agreed to increase the agency’s budget to €16.9 billion over the next five years, in a bid to improve Europe’s position in the space race, but it still has a long way to go before catching up with China and the US.
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