Xxx STCEES 11 E
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
250 STCEES 11 E
Original: English
NATO Parliamentary Assembly
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
VISIT TO MADRID, SPAIN
Mission Report
21-23 September 2011
International Secretariat 4 November 2011
*This Mission Report is presented for information only and does not necessarily represent the official view of the Assembly. This mission report was prepared by Henrik Bliddal, Director of the Science and Technology Committee
Assembly documents are available on its website,
250 STCEES 11 E1
1.From 21 to 23 September 2011, a delegation of the Science and Technology Committee(STC)’s SubCommittee on Energy and Environmental Security (STCEES) of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA) visited Spain. Invited by the Head of the Spanish Delegation, JesusCuadrado, members from Alliance nations as well as a member from Ukraine, an associate country, participated in the visit.
2.The Sub-Committee members had the unique opportunity to visit the NATO Centre of Excellence on Counter-Improvised Explosive Devices in Hoyo de Manzanares, where a multinational team of experts provides NATO and its partner nations with expertise on fighting the challenge of Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). The new centre, which received its accreditation less than a year ago, currently draws on experts from five countries, with Spain as the lead nation. The parliamentarians discussed the current state of CounterIED within NATO with the centre’s director, in particular regarding efforts inAfghanistan, and received a first-hand look at current IED technologies employed by insurgents and terrorist organizations.
3.Another focus of the visit was satellite technologies and their contribution to international security. At the European Union Satellite Centre (EUSC), the delegation learned about the crucial contribution the EUSC makes by providing briefing notes, reports and maps to the EU, NATO and third nations, for example in treaty verification and non-proliferation efforts, evacuation planning and operational support to missions such as EUNAVFOR – Somalia. Also, the sub-committee was granted a look at possible future avenues for European satellites, including surveillance of space debris and sun activity.In other meetings, the satellite operator HISPASAT provided the delegates with an overview of their commercial and security-related satellite programmes.
4.Moreover, the delegation met and discussed with Spanish government and military officials on a diverse range of issues, including climate change,Spain’s strategy to foster renewable energy and cyber defence. The delegation also had the privilege of visiting the La Marañosa Institute of Technology of the Spanish Ministry of Defence, which opened its research and development facilities on the defenceagainst weapons of mass destruction to the delegates.
I.NATO CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE ON COUNTER-IED (C-IED COE)
5.In line with the priorities of the STC as well as the NATO PA as a whole, the delegation visited the NATO Centre of Excellence on Counter-IED (C-IED COE). Naturally, the centre currently focuses on the fight against IEDs in Afghanistan but aims to preserve knowledge gained in that theatre for future operational environments. Indeed, the C-IED COE serves to drive military transformation in NATO and partner countries. Whenever and however it can, it,of course, also supports operations.
6.As an international organisation outside the NATO command structure and financed by the contributing nations – with Spain as the lead nation –, the centre is tightly connected to NATO’s Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, Virginia. For full operational capability, 62 positions are to be filled. However, at this point, not all of these positions are occupied. The challenge is to reach full operation capability as fast as possible, because requests from NATO are flowing in at an accelerating pace.
7.The COE aims to deliver simple, useful and up-to-date products, emphasizing quality above quantity, thus becoming a reference on C-IED in NATO countries and beyond. The centre’s director, Colonel Santiago San Antonio, pointed out that it cannot be a silver bullet in overcoming the IED challenge, but they will contribute their utmost. He gave the delegation an overview of the concept of C-IED, their various programmes and activities as well as his vision of the future for the COE. After this command briefing, the delegates could also take a first-hand look at models of various types of IEDs – some replicas, but other original IEDs retrieved from theatres around the world.
II.SATELLITES AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
8.While in Spain, the delegation was offered the unique opportunity to visit the EUSC on the eastern outskirts of Madrid, where Pascal Legai, the Deputy Director of the EUSC, welcomed the delegates and introduced the work of the EUSC. The STCEES delegation also received briefings by Mr Adriano Baptista, Head of the Operations Division,Gracia Joyanes, a Project Administrator on the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), the EU programme that will establish a European capacity for Earth observation, as well as Juan-Luis Valero, the Director of Support to Precursorspacesituational Awareness services (SPA).
9.The EUSC is paid directly by the EU member states, but operational direction comes first and foremost from the European External Action Service (EEAS). However, other customers can request its services as well, such as other European Council bodies, member states, the European Commission, third states (for example, EUcandidate countries, the United States or Canada) as well as international organizations.
10.The EUSC is not a purely military centre, but has a mixed civilian and military staff. Its main competency is in the field of imagery, where it draws on commercial providers as well as government satellites. In other words, the centre does not possess its own satellite capacities, but has permanent contracts with the relevant providers.
11.With the new EEAS, the EUSC has to support more complex tasks in the future, as the EU now is a global actor with a legal personality, faces broadened military and security prioritiesand now has a mutual assistance clause in case of armed aggression as well as a solidarity clause in terms of terrorist attacks. In general, the EUSC delivers three types of products to its customers: briefing notes (3-4 pages), reports (30-50 pages) and thematic vector maps. These products support, inter alia, emergency responses, EU operations such as EUNAVFOR–Somalia, damage and humanitarian assessments as well as non-proliferation and arms control efforts. For example, during the Libyan uprising, Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, received daily updates from the EUSC. Regarding the GMES and the SPA programmes, the EUSC is still in initial phases, but surveillance of humanitarian and natural disasters as well as complex emergencies under GMES and the possible capability of surveying space for asteroids, sun activity and space debris will, in the nearfuture, become important areas both for Europeand the EUSC.
12.In Madrid itself, the delegation also received a company briefing by PetraMateos, President of Hispasat. Hispasat is a company set up by the Spanish government and a number of ministries and is a key global communication satellite operator. It holds large shares of the satellite market, especially in Latin America. Aside from its commercial products and services, Hispasat also caters to governmental security needs – not only for the Spanish government. Through the HISNORSAT programme, Hispasat will launch highly secure communication satellites that will serve both Spain and Norway. The company has grown remarkably in recent years, MrsMateossaid. This has been a huge boom for the Spanish high-tech industry. She also highlighted the corporate social responsibility programmes that Hisapsat engages in, such as providing satellite internet connections to small rural communities in Latin America.
III.CLIMATE CHANGE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
13.José Garcia Sanchez, Deputy Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank under the Spanish Ministry of Defence, presented the delegation with an overview of the links between climate change and international security. Spain, for its part, has incorporated the effects of climate change into its Spanish Security Strategy: Everyone’s Responsibility, which is the first national strategy of its kind in the country. Mr Garcia Sanchezcalledclimate change ‘the mother of all threats’, as it is the first universal threat because it acts as a risk multiplier in international security. In this context, he addressed issues of globalization, demographic imbalances, poverty and inequality, the perils of technology, as well as radical ideologies. In particular, he pointed to desertification as a big problem in the Mediterranean Region, including Spain. He also highlighted climate-related conflicts, energy shortages, migratory flows, and an increased number of severe weather events in the future. He underlined that the United Nations, and in particular the Security Council, should be at the forefront of mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change on international security.
IV.CYBER SPACE
14.Luis Joyanes Aguilar, Professor of Computer Language and Systems at the ComputerScienceUniversity at the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, gave the committee an exhaustive overview of current events regarding cyber defence and cyber security. He pointed out that there is a crucial need to better address the threats and challengesin the world’s ‘fifth dimension’ after the traditional military domains of land, sea, air and space. He warned that the world needs to be prepared for ‘Cyber-9/11s’ or ‘Cyber-Katrinas’, as the amount of information stored in cyber space increases every day. He pointed out that new areas such as ‘cloud computing’, social media networks, hand-held devices and QR-codes (Quick Response codes), in particular, hold security risks that could be exploited by malicious actors. In Spain, no robust ‘cyber culture’ exists as of yet, but the new Spanish Security Strategy takes steps in the right direction.
V.SPANISH ENERGY STRATEGIES AND RENEWABLE ENERGY
15.Alfonso Beltran Garcia-Echaniz, General Director of the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving of Energy (IDEA), presented the delegates with an overview of IDEA’s work. IDEA is a business corporation that is attached to Spain’s Ministry of Industry and aims to improve energy efficiency and foster renewable energy. Spain is highly dependent on world energy prices, since 80 per cent of the country’s energy needs have to be supplied by fossil fuels. Nevertheless, Spain is slowly converging towards European standards, and the government is very engaged in increasing the competitiveness of the country, while working towards mitigating climate change and sustainable development. For example, Spain has recently approved a new energy efficiency plan, which has ambitious targets for increasing the percentage of renewable energy in the national energy mix. At this point, 11 per cent of Spain’s energy is supplied by renewables, but in 2020, the country aims to reach 20.8 per cent. The transport sector and the railroad system are two areas in which big gains can be made, but improving the efficiency of home equipment is crucial as well. IDEA also invests in companies, thus creating stimuli for new companies to take risks in developing new ideas. While improving current technologies, such as wind energy, they also invest into more experimental companies, which, for example, do research in wave energy.
VI.LA MARANOSA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (ITM)
17.To round off its visit to Spain, the delegation paid a visit to the newly inaugurated La Marañosa Institute of Technology (ITM), the Ministry of Defence’s main research and development institution. Before its creation, the Spanish military’s research and development wasspread across many sites in the country. In order to gain critical mass and synergy effects, the Spanish government centralized these functions. This also opened the possibility to engage in strategic research with experts abroad – a possibility that did not exist before.
18.The Director of the ITM, Brigadier General Luis Orts Pales, presented the institute to the delegation and led them on a campus tour. Stops were made at the highend biological and chemical defence laboratories. Here, the delegates could get a first-hand look at how Spain conducts its defence programmes in these areas, but also how suspicious materials could be tested, for example in case of suspicion of a biological attack.
19.Maria Reyes Feito Castellano, the Under-Director for Environmental Maintenance and Energy Efficiency in the Ministry of Defence, told the delegates of the Spanish Ministry of Defence’ efforts to bring down the very high energy consumption by its roughly 170,000 employees. The current political mandate is to raise awareness in the workforce, reduce prices paid for energy, increase energy efficiency, introduce better environmental management systems and to raise environmental quality in the ministry. She pointed out that at least 8 per cent of the infrastructure budget in ministerial agencies had to be allocated to environmental protection from 2012 onwards.
______