The ESC meeting in November 1969 © ESA ECSR
The drafting of the ESA Convention, or how to make a new space organisation

As 2024 draws to an end, we continue our recent focus on the closing moments of the ELDO and ESRO era and on the last milestones on our ‘road to 1975’.

This particular story takes as its starting point a folder in the ESA Archives collections that gives us an extraordinary insight into the drafting of the ESA Convention. It is also the first in a two-part series looking in depth at the administrative processes, organisations and people that brought ESA into being; part two will follow soon and will analyse and explain the different elements of the meetings that took place on 30 May 1975 to formalise the establishment of the European Space Agency.

The source

The holdings of the ESA Archives at the European Centre for Space Records (ECSR) at ESA ESRIN include a ring binder with around 150 pages of documentation detailing the journey, in the words of its title sticker, ‘from ESRO to ESA Convention’. Covering the period 1975-1985, it contains information and paperwork for the Plenipotentiaries Conference of 30 May 1975, correspondence over use of languages within ESA, a set of letters called the ‘de facto’ circular, a section of documents related to the change in name (from ESRO to ESA) and memos produced by the Drawing-up Committee. 

The European Space Conference and the history of the drafting

Earlier in 1975, the final ministerial meeting of the European Space Conference (ESC) was held in Brussels on 15 April. (‘Ministerial’ meaning that the countries taking part were represented by the relevant government minister.) This meeting adopted the text of the Convention for the new European Space Agency, which it had authored through its Committee of Alternates, paving the way for the signature of the ESA Convention approximately six weeks later, as the culmination of the Conference of Plenipotentiaries.

One of the agenda items for this Conference was, in fact, a report by the Chairman of the ESC, the Belgian Minister Gaston Geens. In it Geens recaps the role of the ESC, which had been born in 1966 out of need for coordination between the different European space organisations, ELDO, ESRO and CETS. At its Bad Godesberg meeting in November 1968, the ESC agreed that the objective to implement a common European space programme could only be realised through a single European space organisation. And with a view to amalgamating the existing organisations, it began a study on the provisions and text of a Convention.

His address goes on to recall the decision at the ESC ministerial meeting on 20 December 1972 “to form a European Space Agency out of ELDO and ESRO and to establish it in such a way that it could begin its activities ‘de facto’ without delay”. Early in 1973, therefore, the Committee of Alternates set up a European Space Agency Working Group (and later the ESA Convention Drafting Committee) to prepare a draft Convention, based in particular on the provisions of the revised ESRO Convention. However, it took until February 1975 for the Committee of Alternates to agree on the definitive text for the package of documents needed to establish ESA: the Convention and its annexes; the Final Act of the Conference of Plenipotentiaries for the signature of the Convention; and the Resolutions appended to the Final Act.

The circle closes when all these texts were presented to the ESC in Brussels  on 15 April 1975. (The Belgian Minister of Scientific Policy had acted as Chairman of the ESC since 1968, first with Théo Lefèvre, followed later by Charles Hanin and Geens.) The Conference confirmed that they corresponded to the political and institutional objectives it had previously laid down, and agreed to consider them as definitive. Geens concludes his report reminding participants that the Conference asked him to transmit these texts to the French government, so that it could convene the Conference of Plenipotentiaries to sign them.

However, there is one last postscript in a memo of 6 March 1975 from Michel Bourély, ESRO Legal Advisor, to ESRO Director General Roy Gibson. Here Bourély outlines the three remaining tasks, for which the six-week period between these events was needed: the process of obtaining full powers by the plenipotentiaries of each country; checking of the translations by the depositary government (i.e. the French government, who would host the Conference and with whom the original version of the Convention would be deposited); and the preparation of the original copy,  intended to be signed by the plenipotentiaries.

And finally, a report on the 15 April meeting in the first ESA Bulletin explains why henceforth the ESC was no longer needed: “In future, the forum for ministerial meetings will be the ESA Council since the Convention provides that 'The Council shall meet as and when required either at delegation level or at ministerial level'”.

ESRO vs ESA (learning lessons)

While the drafting of the ESA Convention may have been based on the provisions of its ESRO counterpart, Geens also highlights features arising from the resolve of the ESC to “learn the lessons of the past”, notably in the more extensive tasks entrusted to ESA, which would include coordinating and executing the European space programme. Additionally, ESA would be the only body competent to act in all sectors of space activity. Bourély concurs in a piece he wrote for the first ESA Bulletin on The salient features of the Convention establishing a European Space Agency, mentioning the greater scope of missions, expansion in activities and emphasis on space applications. But while both make reference to the enhanced political and executive competence noted above, with the new decision-making structures replacing the ESC, Geens also highlights the care taken by the ESC to ensure continuity in the execution of the existing organisations’ activities and programmes.

De facto functioning

That leads to consideration of the key words ‘de facto’, and to the legal provisions made around them, to which Bourély refers in his text. He explains that the ESC’s wish for ESA to function ‘de facto’, prior to ratification of its Convention, was put into effect with a Resolution of the Conference of Plenipotentiaries as well as a Resolution of the ESRO Council. By these means, ESRO took the title of European Space Agency from the day after the day on which the Convention was opened for signature, ensuring a smooth transition and the required continuity.

In the aftermath of this establishment of ESA on 30 May, letters were sent out in June 1975 to partner organisations, diplomatic representations and international organisations, advising them of the change in name - the ‘de facto circular’ in our folder. The template text, signed by the new ESA Director General Roy Gibson, clarifies this juridical basis for ESA’s functioning from 31 May for its readers: “Pending the necessary ratifications of the new Convention, the legal basis of the Agency's activity remains the Convention for the Establishment of a European Space Research Organisation. This change of name, therefore, in no way affects the rights and obligations of the Organisation, which are unchanged, and does not call for any revision of the agreements or contracts that it has concluded”. 

The next chapter in the Convention

While ESA functioned ‘de facto’ from 31 May 1975, the ESA Convention only entered into force on 30 October 1980. We’ll be looking very shortly at the processes through which ESA took on institutional form on 30 May 1975, and at what happened next, in part two.

Want to dig deeper?

The holdings of the ESA Archives on the European Space Conference are hosted by the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) in accordance with a deposit agreement with the European University Institute. You can access the digitised ESC fonds on the HAEU website, along with those for the other pre-ESA European space organisations – COPERS, ELDO and ESRO.