Today is the day that we mark 50 years since the creation of ESA on 30 May 1975. To celebrate our first half-century, and to promote access to the historical records, we have opened a copy of the unique and original ESA Convention in our SHIP database, and recently reconstructed its history using material from the ESA Archives in a series of articles.
The ESA Convention
This 378-page founding document was signed on 30 May 1975 by the ten countries who had been members of the first European space organisations ELDO and ESRO: the Federal Republic of Germany, the Kingdom of Belgium, the Kingdom of Denmark, Spain, the French Republic, the Italian Republic, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Kingdom of Sweden, and the Swiss Confederation. It was subsequently signed by Ireland on 31 December 1975. It comprises the complete articles of the Convention and its annexes in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish, followed at the end with the original signatures. (While the original plan was for the Convention to be signed in eight languages, a 22 April 1975 memo from ESA Legal Advisor Michel Bourély confirmed that the Danish translation would not be ready in time.)
Sharp-eyed readers will also note an error in the page numbering between pages 157 and 159 of the document, with one page missing a number and other page numbers out of sequence. This is an error in the original copy which has been faithfully digitised.
We would like to thank the Archives of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères), who undertook the digitisation work, for their generosity in offering us this digital copy.
The Final Act of the Conference of Plenipotentiaries
The Final Act is a 69-page document which effectively gives the background to the Conference and summarises its outcome. It comprises the text of the Final Act and a set of ten appended resolutions, in the same seven languages as the Convention and in the same order (alphabetical order according to the name of the language in French, beginning with German – allemand).
The Final Act was signed before the Convention on 30 May, by the 12 delegations which took part in the Conference, representing the Member States of the European Space Conference which had been tasked with setting up ESA. (These included Ireland and Norway, who did not sign the ESA Convention on that day.) This digitised version was made from a certified copy provided by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs at that time.
Consult the documents
See the ESA Convention and Final Act in SHIP or use the search term ‘Convention’.
Read more about their history:
Special edition marks 50 years of the ESA Convention
The drafting of the ESA Convention, or how to make a new space organisation
30 May 1975: Rediscovering ESA’s day zero
Signature of the Convention to entry in force: the last chapter in the creation of ESA