Aanhef

The States parties to this Convention,

Considering that the magnitude of the human, technical and financial resources required for activities in the space field is such that these resources lie beyond the means of any single European country,

Considering the Resolution adopted by the European Space Conference on 20 December 1972 and confirmed by the European Space Conference on 31 July 1973, which decided that a new organisation, called the ‘European Space Agency’, would be formed out of the European Space Research Organisation and the European Organisation for the Development and Construction of Space Vehicle Launchers, and that the aim would be to integrate the European national space programmes into a European space programme as far and as fast as reasonably possible,

Desiring to pursue and to strengthen European cooperation, for exclusively peaceful purposes, in space research and technology and their space applications, with a view to their being used for scientific purposes and for operational space applications systems,

Desiring, in order to achieve these aims, to establish a single European space organisation to increase the efficiency of the total of European space efforts by making better use of the resources at present devoted to space and to define a European space programme for exclusively peaceful purposes,

Have agreed as follows: