European Space Agency announce the largest ever budget
28th Nov 2019The ESA’s #Space19Plus Ministerial Council gathering in Seville, Spain, has come to an end with all participating nations committed to increasing their contribution to the annual budget of the European Space Agency.
The UK’s contribution to the ESA was a whopping 1.6B Euros
A total of 14.4B Euros was pledged by all member states, with the UK contributing 11.5% of that with a contribution of just over 1.6B Euros. The largest contributors were Germany, Italy and France, with Germany being the biggest contributor, providing a generous 3.2B Euros, amounting to almost 23% of the entire ESA budget.
The two-day event culminated in a series of resolutions, committing the group to uphold a series of objectives and principles.
Earlier in the week, there was some doubt as to the UK’s continued relationship with the European Space Agency, or at least on its budget contribution, however, all seemed well by Wednesday when the UK announced it was increasing its budget by 15%. UK Minister, Chris Skidmore was unable to attend in person and sent his apology to ESA through Twitter, announcing he had just become a father.
You can see a more detailed breakdown of what the ESA budget is spent on here:
https://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/corporate/Space19plus_charts.pdf
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