Antonio Tajani, Vice-President of the European Commission, responsible for Industry and Entrepreneurship, is to visit ESA's ESRIN Establishment in Frascati near Rome on Monday 4 April.

During his visit, he will be briefed by Volker Liebig, Director of Earth Observation programmes at ESA, on the operations of the International Charter on Major Disasters in relation to the earthquake and tsunami that recently hit Japan.

He will be informed about Charter activities in support of the Japanese government and of other international organisations such as the UN in connection with damage assessment and planning for reconstruction. He will also be briefed on geomorphology monitoring activities in the Japan region using interferometry techniques.

In addition, Tajani will be briefed on the status of the GMES space component programme, the part of the Commission's Global Monitoring for Environment and Security Programme that is managed by ESA.

He will be given examples of applications providing support to users that will be made possible thanks to data provided by the future GMES Sentinel satellites.

The visit will be followed by a press conference, starting at 10:30, during which A. Tajani will present the Communication of the Commission on a European Union space strategy serving its citizens.

This document, which was prepared by the Commission alone, is addressed to the European Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, and sets out the main actions for the Union's space policy.