Space, here are challenges and dossiers for Tabacci between Avio, ESA and beyond
Goals and scenarios with the delegation to Space for the Undersecretary to the Prime Minister, Bruno Tabacci. Speech by Prof. Ezio Bussoletti, former vice president of ASI (Italian space agency)
The news is fresh off the press that the honorable Bruno Tabacci, undersecretary to the presidency of the Council with responsibility for planning and economic coordination, has also received the delegation to Space, finally jurisdiction prevails thanks to the Draghi government.
For years, and many, all of us in the sector have been discussing the urgent need for such a strategic issue for the country as that of space to be coordinated at the central level of the Presidency of the Council by competent people able to ensure political coverage for Italy. that technically we had long ago achieved a valid leadership position not only in Europe but globally.
Despite these premises, it took thirty years, from the 1988 date of birth of the ASI, to get to promulgate a law that brings the political and management coordination of all national space activities directly under the control of the Prime Minister. In fact, it is only the Law 7 of 11 January 2018 that everything has materialized. Promulgated one of the last days of the legislature, the law started hastily even if still with some easily resolvable inconsistencies. For example, the president of ASI , that is of the agency that had to execute and implement the strategic choices of the Interministerial Committee, the Comint , was expected to be part of it: a clear conflict of interest in which a subsidiary was at the same time its own controller.
The problem was soon solved by removing the figure from the decision-making role of the Committee where he sits as a guest and presents what he is asked to illustrate. In the two Conte governments, the Comint has naturally had ups and downs for various reasons, including the lack of specific preparation of some of its members called to play roles that do not correspond to the real skills, neither technical nor actually institutional.
The results were evident in the second government mandate characterized by some unfortunate initiatives taken and by even more embarrassing results; not least the erroneous campaign to try to cover the ESA General Management . Campaign approached with lightness and improvisation by making itself strong in the fact that Italy, for the first time, had committed itself to contributing to the programs proposed by ESA for the significant sum of 2, 2 billion euros. But it ended with the presence of two candidates, one official and a second self presented, whose curricula were not considered adequate by the International Selection Committee which then rightly chose the best of the three selected experts: the Austrian Joseph Aschbacher , excellent manager, young and with a long career within ESA which allows him to have a global vision of the state of the art that others do not have.
Undersecretary Tabacci will face various problems that are not simple, first of all that of giving the country a professional and political credibility that has been heavily lowered in the last two years. Apart from the evidence of "what" to plan seriously in the context of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Pnrr), and how to bring attention to the entire national supply chain without pre-established and not always justified preferences, there are at least two other decidedly strategic issues of great importance.
The first is how to support and strengthen the weight that Avio and its launchers can have above all in the European context: therefore not only as a support to the new Ariane6 class launchers (a topic which Europe will soon need to discuss for various clear reasons) but also because they represent medium and small-medium class aircraft of great importance at European and international level but which, at the same time, see their position threatened by the new appetites of Germany and other countries eager to develop similar carriers and, perhaps , less expensive. The result of the very recent meeting that Minister Giorgetti, who has always been very attentive to space issues and in favor of supporting national industry, with his French counterpart was also important in this.
Last but not least is the Italian position in the top management and management positions of ESA in which, not a happy previous inheritance, we have lost two important Directorates, remaining only with that of Estec in the Netherlands, weakened compared to the past.
With the appointment of Aschbacher as General Manager, the management of the Esrin Center in Frascati was released, which effectively manages all the Earth Observation activities and consequent environmental services with high added value. Management with the largest budget of the entire annual ESA funding
A few days ago the Council of the Agency gave a mandate to the Director General to launch the call for the selection of a new director; the vacancy is dated March 19th and expires on April 30th, in the canonical six weeks.
The professional profile sought is extremely detailed: will this be enough for aspiring Italian candidates to reduce in number given the specificity, both scientific and managerial, required? Recent history would reasonably suggest no, so in my opinion there is the risk of finding oneself with improbable, unsuitable characters or characters who, in principle, participate in any top-level competition convinced of their all-round abilities.
In the context of any selection for organizations such as ESA, some clear truths must never be forgotten: the evaluation takes place at an international level among European candidates who are highly qualified in the specific sector (in Italy we have few that are largely competitive); the Selection Committee is made up of seven people: the Director General, the President of the Council (Swedish), the two Vice Presidents of the Council (Spanish and Swiss), the President of the Program Board of Earth Observations (French), the President of the AFC Administrative and Finance Committee (Dutch) and ESA Personnel Director (French). The interviews of the candidates selected in the short list will take place in the presence of a representative of each member country as the only guest.
In this context, it is good to be clear that Italy, contrary to those who could naively believe (or dream), has no more cards to play than to confront others by presenting a highly qualified candidate with internationally recognized skills is on the specific subject of Earth Observations and consequent services and in the management of large-scale structures with proven successes.
The fact of having invested a lot of money in the last ministerial in Seville will probably not have a significant weight especially with the composition of the Selection Committee, in addition, it is good to be aware of it, the Italian vote in Aschbacher's election was only one of 18 and certainly it did not represent a strategic element for his victory.
Therefore, the professional competence of the candidates will be largely at stake given the importance of the Directorate and the evolution of relations between ESA and the Commission in the near future.
Undersecretary Tabacci is a man and a politician with a long history behind him and with clear examples of professional and managerial competence; if it is possible to offer him unsolicited advice, the proposal is simple: quickly launch a public tender for the selection of "the only Italian candidate" which expires by mid-April. This will give you plenty of time to choose the best expert.
Italy will finally be able to present itself with only one candidate to compare with other European competitors, also showing that it has regained a managerial and political credibility heavily damaged by recent history.
Man is capable of this, he certainly has and always has had a profound sense of the state and of the dignity that everyone should always demonstrate when they work in the interest of the country.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/spazio-ecco-sfide-e-dossier-per-tabacci-fra-avio-esa-e-non-solo/ on Tue, 23 Mar 2021 08:51:39 +0000.