Romania will participate with full rights and on an equal footing at the upcoming meeting of the European Space Agency (ESA) in November, where the projects for the next three-year cycle will be discussed and decided, the Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitization, Sebastian Burduja said on Tuesday, in Brussels, for AGERPRES.

The Romanian minister met, on Tuesday, in Brussels, with the general director of the Defense Industry and Space Directorate, Timo Pesonen, to whom he gave assurances that Romania will solve the problem of the outstanding contribution to the ESA.

„It is an amount that we pay in a single installment. It is true, there are approximately 40 million euros left to pay until the end of the year and we are in discussions with the Ministry of Finance to secure these funds,” he added.

The Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitization emphasized that all the sums that Romania pays as contributions to ESA return to Romania, even directly, in a proportion of over 85-90%.

„We participate in major European projects, (…) the recent Vega-C rocket had the Romanian flag on it, and this is because Romania participated in the testing of the model in our hypersonic facilities at IINCAS, contributing to the electronics part, of components, of aerodynamics. We are really respected at this level, because we have a very good school and our research institutes, the academic environment, the Bucharest Polytechnic University are entities with tradition and results in this field,” the minister assessed.

He also said that this „is a good signal” for young researchers in Romania, namely „that they can perform while remaining in Romania, on ESA projects assigned to Romanian entities”.

Agerpres