North sur les traces de Lord Drayson

Sur son site “EUReferendum”, à la date du 12 mars, Robert North suit à la trace, et avec l’œil critique qu’on imagine, le déplacement du ministre Drayson à Washington.

North rappelle que les auditions au Sénat cette semaine (dont nous faisons mention) porteront sur l’abandon du moteur Rolls/GE et qu’il n’y aura pas place pour parler des transferts de technologies, le sujet qui tient à cœur à Drayson. North signale qu’il y aura également, demain, une audition des représentants des huit pays non-US du programme, portant sur les plaintes qu’ils ont à formuler dans le domaine économique du programme. Là aussi, pas question des transferts de technologies.

Mais si Drayson insiste pour parler de cette question, … « he could be in for a rough time. One thing that has lodged with Congress is Britain’s part in the EU's Galileo GPS project, and the fact that China has been invited on-board as a full development partner.

» Almost as if it is intentionally seeking to undermine Drayson and the UK, the EU has now added a further twist to this tale, signing last Friday a co-operation agreement with Russia on space activites, Included in this is an agreement on Global Navigation, implementing joint development of user applications jointly with between the EU's Galileo and the Russian GLONASS systems.

» Further co-operation includes joint work on “earth observation” (spy satellites) and satellite communications. Since the French are already closely co-operating with the Russians on several military aviation projects, through EADS, with which BAE Systems has close ties – this cannot help reassure Congress than any technology passed to the British will go no further. Drayson may yet get his excuse to abandon the JSF. »

Mis en ligne le 13 mars 2006 à 09H30