UAP Check

Between the speakers and the registered participants, a dozen European and international ufologist organizations, present or represented, gathered in a room of the European Parliament. Nearly 150 people followed the discussions online. What follow-up can we expect, or imagine, from this day to remember?

"My work as a Member of the European Parliament focuses on the creation of a harmonized European system for monitoring, collecting and analyzing data on UAP. The European Union, institutionally composed of 27 member states, has no such system. As a result, thousands of citizens and experienced professionals do not know or feel safe to report events they cannot explain," said MEP Francisco Guerreiro in his introduction to the event "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, EU Airspace : Reporting and Scientific Assessment" he hosted on March 20, 2024 at the European Parliament in Brussels. (1)

This independent Portuguese politician, feminist, vegan, son of a biologist and very committed to animal welfare, the LGBTI cause and against all forms of discrimination, sits as a member of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament and on the European Parliament's Fisheries, Agriculture, Budget and Internal Market Committees. (2) On the subject of UAPs, Francisco Guerreiro was initially very sceptical, as he has acknowledged on numerous occasions. Until then, UAPs had not been an issue for this elected representative - one of 21 Portuguese MEPs in the European Parliament. The issue seemed neither major nor credible.

For Guerreiro, it all began with the US Congressional hearings in Spring 2023. These public, official, bicameral and bipartisan discussions caught his attention, showing him that across the Atlantic the issue was not only taken seriously, but was also highly political and widely covered by the national media. Francisco Guerreiro's view of the UAP changed. His meeting with the UAP Coalition Netherlands team reinforced his new point of view:

"The whole world is talking about it, the U.S. Congress has dealt with it, but in the EU, I have not heard any debate about it yet"

he sums up. (3) So Francisco Guerreiro started asking questions… first in writing, in the form of parliamentary questions addressed to the Commission. So Francisco Guerreiro began asking questions… first under written questions MEPs addressed to the Commission's services. The Commission have to reply in writing to these written questions within a maximum of 6 weeks…

MEP’S WRITTEN QUESTIONS FIRST

Francisco Guerreiro's first written question was published on July 28, 2023. It was registered the days after the hearings of the National Security Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability of former U.S. Air Force Intelligence Officer David Grusch, former U.S. Navy Commander David Fravor, and Ryan Graves, Executive Director of Americans for Safe Aerospace (ASA, the first U.S. association dedicated to UAPs and headed by a former military officer, lieutenant and F-18 pilot with over ten years' service in the U.S. Navy), Guerreiro's question to the Commission concerned any European reports and protocols that might exist on UAPs. He asked especially if "the Commission have any knowledge or documentation that has been collected by Member States or EU agencies, such as the European Union Agency for the Space Programme? Does the European Defence Agency (EDA) have any reports about UAPs and does the EDA have internal protocols for receiving reports about UAPs from Member States in a transparent and accountable way?". And any reports about UAPs and internal protocols for receiving reports about UAPs from pilots and radar operators ithe European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) may have? (4)

On November 9, 2023, just over three months later (instead of the maximum six weeks laid down in the European Parliament's Rules of Procedure), the Commission displayed its ignorance through the voice of French commissioner Thierry Breton, whose responsibilities include space and defense. He pointed out, for example, that EDA "does not hold any documents that would correspond to the topic of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs)". Or, in addition, that gathering knowledge or documentation about unidentified anomalous phenomena is however not one of these objectives of the EU Space Programme is implemented by the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA)… (5)

On January 31, 2024, Guerreiro submitted two further written questions to the Commission. One to update of the EU regulation on Civil aviation to include UAP reporting (6), the other on the UAP monitoring and reporting in the EU Space Law (7). The civil aviation question was answered eleven weeks later by Romanian Adina-Iona Valean, the European Commissioner for Transport. This reply of April 11, 2024 - which stresses that the conclusions of the Civil Aviation Regulation assessment study, published in 2020, make no mention of the need to take account of UAPs - is in line with previous statements by the Commission, stating that it knows nothing, and wants to know nothing, about UFOs, UAOs and UAPs…(8) French Commissioner Thierry Breton's response, finally published on April 23, seeks to close the debate: "The inclusion of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) reporting system extends beyond the EU’s technological capabilities and the legal basis of the legislation. The area of UAP is considered a competence of the Member States, allowing them to address these phenomena according to the national security needs (…) It is therefore not included within the scope of the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) partnership services nor in the Near-Earth objects (NEO) activities".(9) By the way, since April 9th 2024, the European Commission has also announced that any future space legislation proposal will be published in Autumn of 2024, at the earliest…(10)

PLENARY ONE-MINUTE SPEECHES, TO ADD

Back to the European Parliament. Just a week after his two written questions on January 31, MEP Guerreiro also took the floor on the subject of UAPs at a plenary session in Strasbourg. This public speech on the subject, the first video recorded, created a buzz and made Francisco Guerreiro famous among pan-European and international ufological networks. His one-minute speech on February 5, 2024 was very straightforward, reviewing the draft European space legislation, making the link with debates in the USA and highlighting the security breach represented by the absence of European reporting on the UFO question. His focused speech supported the amendments he has tabled. A second speech followed at the next plenary session, on March 11, the day after the publication of the AARO report. A public report that Guerreiro, quoting Luis Elizondo, described as "intentionally dishonest, inaccurate and dangerously misleading".

"For me and many others, one thing seems rational and obvious: someone is hiding something, and it's not those who are seeking the answers,"

he stated. (11) (12)

A dozen interviews, half of them podcasted, accompanied in February and March 2024 the media coverage of the MEP Francisco Guerreiro speeches.(13) His X feed (ex-Twitter) includes a dozen of tweets on the UAPs. His videos of February 5 (83,500 views, 451 Likes and 170 ReTweets) and even more of March 11 (138,000 views, 969 Likes, 351 ReTweets) got an audience. That podium was followed by the announcement of the March 20 event (76,000 views, 376 Likes and 174 ReTweets), and its replay, published on March 21 (72,600 views, 724 Likes, 220 ReTweets).(14) (15) (16) (17) The UFO subject is a buzz, popular and unifying. As the #UFOTwitter of #UFOx tags. And the most American UFO influencers supported the MEP. But what about his political impact?

A PINCH OF INDIVIDUAL MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION

March 11 is also the day on which the European Parliament registers the resolution tabled by Francisco Guerreiro on UAPs. This individual motion for a resolution concerns the updating of the EU regulation on occurrence reporting, analysis and monitoring in civil aviation to include reports of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.(18) This is Regulation No. 376/2014, which only affects civil aviation, not space legislation.

Francisco Guerreiro is no stranger to this approach, a political leverage he has already used to call for "the setting up an EU-wide unconditional basic income pilot project". But also for "the creation of a Palestine Facility Mechanism".(19) This is a tool provided for in the Parliament's Rules of Procedure that any MEP can seize… at the risk of remaining isolated! "In accordance with Article 143 of the Parliament's Rules of Procedure, any individual Member may table a motion for a resolution on a matter falling within the spheres of activity of the EU," explains the European Parliament on its website. Admissible motions are referred to the committee responsible, which shall decide whether to follow up the motion for resolution and, if so, which procedure is to be followed." Will the motion for resolution be assigned to the Transport Committee (TRAN)? In particular, will it be examined by June 2024? Or will it be rejected out of hand by the TRAN coordinators? Francisco Guerreiro's office doesn't yet know.

NO POLITICAL OUTCOMES TO REVIEW ?

What can we say about this incursion of the UFO / UAP domains into the European Parliament? An amendment on European space legislation that the other MEPs did not accept? Written questions to which the Commission repeatedly says it has no information on the subject? The spotlight on a falsely "new" name: 'Unknown Airborne Objects' (UAO), a nomenclature used by the CIA as early as 1950 in a memo, whose acronym recalls also the 'Unconventional Aerial Objects' of the APRO era in the 1960s and 70s? An individual resolution, subject to the goodwill of the President of the European Parliament? Facing these outcomes, MEP Francisco Guerreiro's track record seems far from successful. But the truth, as we know, is out there.

Several things are obvious to me. The first is that Francisco Guerreiro was able to provoke debate. His maneuvers to politicize the UAP issue, i.e. to bring it back to life within the European Parliament - despite the absence of a dedicated legislative agenda - have succeeded in exploiting the full range of institutional tools and means at his disposal: written questions, speaking time in plenary, hosting workshop, individual resolutions… The use of social networks, by addressing UFO communities and influencers directly online, enabled the Portuguese MEP to create a buzz, i.e. to gain and impose visibility on the subject, thus circumventing the dismissal that his fellow MEPs and representatives of the European institutions formally addressed to him.

Another very important point, which in my opinion will be remembered by history, is Guerreiro's unquestionable political support for witnesses of all domains, past, present and future. This commitment against the stigmatization of witnesses and their stories is in line with the European Greens' fight for the dignity of each individual and against discrimination. It's about respecting fundamental rights.

No one in the European Union, including witnesses and UAP contacts, should be subjected to harassment or degrading treatment.

Above all, beyond any deciphering of influence strategy and political statement in favor of fundamental human rights - a constant position of MEP Francisco Guerreiro - the most important thing for me is out there… It is in the emergence of a UFO lobby in Europe.

(to be continued in Part 2)

NOTES AND REFERENCES

(1) «UAP : Reporting and Scientific Assessment in the European Parliament» on 20 March 2024, EuroUFO, published on 22 March 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puUeTG8_ctw&t=1s

(2) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/197645/FRANCISCO_GUERREIRO/home

(3) https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/world/ufos-over-europe-inside-the-eu-s-first-conference-on-unidentified-aerial-phenomena/ar-BB1kuS4I

(4) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-002375_EN.html

(5) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-002375-ASW_EN.html

(6) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2024-000314_EN.html

(7) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2024-000318_EN.html

(8) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2024-000314-ASW_EN.html

(9) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2024-000318-ASW_EN.html

(10) https://www.euractiv.com/section/industrial-strategy/news/thierry-breton-says-european-space-law-might-be-presented-after-the-summer/

(11) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/CRE-9-2024-02-05-INT-1-203-0000_EN.html

(12) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/CRE-9-2024-03-11-INT-1-227-0000_EN.html

(13) https://www.franciscoguerreiro.eu/pt/entrevista