The European Space Agency (ESA) sees no necessity for building a European Space Force because, as written in its convention, the agency works for exclusively peaceful purposes, ESA Director-General Jan Woerner told Sputnik
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th April, 2019) The European Space Agency (ESA) sees no necessity for building a European Space Force because, as written in its convention, the agency works for exclusively peaceful purposes, ESA Director-General Jan Woerner told Sputnik.
"ESA will never work on a European Space Force," Woerner said. "I don't know what has been discussed in the European Union... as Director General of ESA, I am really 100% linked to our convention."
In January, European Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry and Entrepreneurship Elzbieta Bienkowska said that a number of European Union member states have been discussing the possibility of creating a European Space Force.
European Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry and Entrepreneurship Elzbieta Bienkowska told Sputnik earlier this month that the European Space Force, if created, will not be established until the distant future.
Bienkowska did not specify then which countries supported the possible move to create a European Space Force.
In February, US President Donald Trump signed a directive to establish a US Space Force as a sixth branch of the armed forces within the Department of the Air Force. According to the Pentagon, the US Space Force will focus on global surveillance, missile targeting and countering Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapons, among other priorities.
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, approved by more than 100 countries, bans deploying weapons of mass destruction in outer space and military activities on celestial bodies.
