Spain opens the doors to Brussels of its secret radar imagery archives
The Spanish Ministry of Defence has opened the doors to its secret archives of radar images so that they can also be exploited, deciphered and converted into geospatial intelligence by expert analysts from the European Union.
Minister Margarita Robles has authorised her department to give the green light to the European Union Satellite Centre, an organisation that has just been given free and fast access to the National System of Earth Observation Satellites, based on the Paz radar satellite. The satellite has been in orbit since February 2018 and is owned by the company Hisdesat, whose main client is the Ministry of Defence.
Such a decision makes Spain the first of the five European nations that have committed to Brussels to step forward and provide it with nationally owned images to complement those it already uses from the European Copernicus constellation and others. In the case of Spain, the more than 50,000 top-secret digital photographs taken by the Paz radar platform, which have already been used by the Spanish Armed Forces, will be made available for the benefit of the 28 EU countries.
The agreement was recently signed by the Director General of Defence Policy (DIGENPOL), Lieutenant General Fernando López del Pozo, and the Director of the EU Satellite Centre (EU SatCen), Romanian diplomat Sorin Ducaru, who since June 2019 has been at the head of the European institution whose headquarters are located at the Torrejón air base near Madrid.
For Ambassador Ducaru, the recently initialled agreement is proof of the "commitment and high level of trust that Spain places in the experience and professionalism of the Centre", an institution that is the "only provider of geospatial intelligence analysis services" in Brussels. The European institution generates intelligence reports that support the Union's foreign, security and defence policy, especially to provide an overview of relevant events in crisis and emergency situations.
Fast and secure transfer mechanism
By providing free but restricted access to the national Earth observation system's collection of digital photographs, the Spanish Ministry of Defence is extending the capabilities of EU SatCen in its role of collecting and analysing images and data captured by the Paz radar satellite, giving Brussels a more complete and up-to-date view of what is happening on the planet.
The first step for the EU to gain access to national archives of classified and locked satellite photographs was taken less than six months ago. Five European nations gave their blessing in the summer of 2023 to an EU SatCen initiative to generate synergies by harnessing national imagery for the benefit of Brussels' Common Foreign Policy.
A Joint Framework Agreement was signed on 25 August by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Spain's Josep Borrell, and the defence ministers of Germany, Boris Pistorius, France, Sébastien Lecornu, Italy, Guido Crosetto, and Spain, Margarita Robles. Also by Luxembourg's second vice-president and head of the defence portfolio, François Bausch.
Spain has moved ahead of the other four countries, and EU SatCen has already accelerated talks with the other defence ministries to finalise similar implementation agreements and gain access to satellite data that are so far only under the control of the governments of Berlin, Paris, Rome and Luxembourg.
How is the newly signed agreement being handled, and what is the way for the Satellite Centre to gain access to the top-secret radar image catalogues of the Paz satellite? Both parties have set up an inter-relationship and transfer mechanism whereby the European centre in Torrejón can securely access the image and data archives of the Spanish spacecraft.
To support decision-making
The two organisations have agreed that requests should be channelled through official channels to the department headed by Minister Robles. Requests, as well as the transmission of answers and material, are made through the encrypted and highly secure electronic communication lines established between EU SatCen and the Ministry of Defence.
The transfer of images is carried out at no cost to Brussels, provided that a certain number of new and archived photos is not exceeded. Failing this, the Satellite Centre has the possibility to request the governmental system for the Paz satellite to fly over an area of the Earth in which the European authorities have a special interest.
The agreement includes a safeguard clause. The department of Lieutenant General López del Pozo, who has captained DIGENPOL since June 2021 and was previously commander-in-chief of the Defence Staff Operations Command, reserves the right to "unilaterally interrupt at any time" the service it provides to the EU when there are "concrete and justified" reasons for doing so.
The EU Satellite Centre is an agency of the European Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), reporting to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Spanish Josep Borrell. Its tasks include supporting EU decision-making and action in the area of the CFSP, in particular the Common Security and Defence Policy.
The recipients of the European Satellite Centre's reports and analyses are the senior authorities in Brussels, the European External Action Service, military commanders and staffs of EU crisis management operations and training missions around the world. As a result, the security conditions governing the working environment of the European Satellite Centre's analysts are very thorough and the risks of intelligence leakage are very low or virtually non-existent.
EU Member States, European agencies such as the agency dedicated to the management of external border cooperation, better known as FRONTEX, as well as international institutions such as the United Nations and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, also benefit.