Forty-ninth Session of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space
Vienna, 7 – 16 June, 2006

Agenda Item 5, General exchange of views

Mr. Chairman,

Let me express my warmest congratulations to you as being elected the chairman of this Committee. I am convinced that under your chairmanship this Committee will reach a significant progress in its work.

Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Delegates,

First I want to convey our sympathy and condolences to the delegation and people of Indonesia, where very recently thousands of people lost their lives due to the devastating earthquakes.

Let me now briefly inform the Committee on some important features of our country’s space programme.

Hungary highly appreciates that as a follow-up the UNISPACE III conference held in Vienna, in July 1999, the European and French space agencies initiated the International Charter "Space and Major Disasters", to which several more Agencies joined since. The Disasters Charter provides quick, remote sensing based help to countries in case of emergency. Earlier this year the Disasters Charter was activated for the benefit of some Central European countries, including Hungary. Heavy rainfall and snowmelt at the end of March and in April 2006 caused the highest peak of overflow in the last century of the river Tisza, a major tributary of the Danube, and of the Danube itself. The cities of Prague, Budapest, and Belgrade were threatened; by mid-April, thousands had been evacuated. the activation of the Disasters Charters had been requested by the European Commission Civil Protection Monitoring and Information Centre, the project management had been done by the German Space Agency, DLR. On behalf of the Hungarian authorities my delegation expresses thanks for the help provided by the Disasters Chater.

It is my privilege to announce here that Hungary just recently joined the GEO/GEOSS international co-operation, as its 64th member. This activity is co-ordinated by the Ministry of Informatics and Communications.

As a consequence of our EU membership since 2004, my country takes part in the activity of the European Space Council. Of the space related programmes of the European Union the GMES is the most important for us, since for the time being this promises the most direct results for the benefit of the people.

Our highest priority in international cooperation is that with the European Space Agency. Hungary is a European Cooperating State of the Agency. The implementation of PECS Agreement goes smoothly, yielding several successes in different fields of space activity. However, for us the most important step forward is the fact that the Hungarian minister of informatics and communications received an official authorisation by the Hungarian Government to officially notify ESA that Hungary would like to access the ESA Convention. Hungary’s negotiations on the accession to ESA Convention hopefully will begin later this year.

We highly appreciate that ESA invited the representatives of the new member states of the European Union as observers to the Agency’s Ministerial level Council Meeting.

My delegation expresses our congratulations to the delegation of Romania on the occasion that the country last February joined the European Space Acency’s PECS programme. We expect a continuing successful co-operation with ESA by the three member states of the PECS programme, namely the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary. We hope that in order to strengthen this co-operation ESA will soon establish the PECS Committee.

As a follow-up of our close cooperation with ESA Hungarian students have the opportunity to participate in ESA’s educational programmes. This very important aspect of our ESA relation will be mentioned in details by my deledation in a separate statement under Agenda Item “Space and Society”.

Our scientists and engineers successfully participated in a few international space missions. Last February two pieces of three axis cosmic particle detectors, designed and produced in the Atomic Energy Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences were brought to the International Space Station. The several months long series of measurements is a part of an ambitious international project, aiming the investigation of the neutron radiation field within the station.

The same Hungarian institute also took part in the Photon–M satellite mission. They produced a few of the instruments of the Biopan–5 experiment facility package. The experiment was to measure radiation doses, comprising a set of five different detection methods. Special attention was paid to measuring radiation doses behind extremely thin levels of shielding.

In the meantime the possibilities of our future participation in different international scientific space missions are step by step outlined. Our scientists continue their participation in ESA’s Rosetta mission. In the future the will also participate in the Beppi Colombo mission to planet Mercury, both in ESA and Japan cooperation.

Thank you for your attention.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.