Geneva, 7 May 1998. Antonio Rodotà, Director-General of the European Space Agency (ESA) visited CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics on Thursday, 7 May. He was welcomed by CERN Director-General Chris Llewellyn Smith, together with his designated successor, Luciano Maiani.

After fruitful discussions the Directors-General agreed on the creation of working groups to study and propose systematic joint activities to be conducted on a regular basis between the two organizations.

The working groups will reinforce the existing co-operation between the organizations in scientific and technical fields, for example in data acquisition, handling and networking. The importance of communicating to the general public the scientific aims and achievements of both organizations was underlined by setting up new initatives to take advantage of joint experience in educational projects and outreach actions. Finally, the representatives of CERN and ESA agreed to reinforce the exchange of information on administrative issues.

The working groups will present proposals to the management of the respective agencies in September 1998.

1. CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation,the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and Unesco have observer status.