Amendments to the ECMWF Convention entered into force

The amendments to the Convention of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) entered into force on 6 June 2010. This is a milestone in ECMWF’s history as it allows an enlargement of ECMWF’s membership and an expansion of the scope of its activities.

The original Convention restricted ECMWF’s membership to the founding 18 Member States. The amended Convention enables more States to join ECMWF as full Member States. Several of the existing Co-operating States have already indicated their firm intention to apply for full membership as soon as the amended Convention comes into force.

Furthermore, the amended Convention enlarges ECMWF's mission to cover the monitoring of the Earth-system. It will allow running third party activities which are in line with the purpose and objectives of the Centre, and establishing optional programmes , insofar as they contribute to the ECMWF objectives, which will provide an excellent tool for executing activities which not all Member States wish to be involved in.

The amendments to the Convention had been adopted by the ECMWF Council on 22 April 2005. Thereafter, all ECMWF Member States had to officially notify their acceptance of the amendments to the depositary of the ECMWF Convention, the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union. The amended Convention entered into force on 6 June, 30 days after the last notification.

At an event at the headquarters of ECMWF on Monday, 7 June, the entry into force of the amendments to the ECMWF Convention were celebrated together with representatives of embassies of ECMWF Member and Co-operating States’, representatives of the UK Government, and officials of local authorities.

About ECMWF

ECMWF is an independent intergovernmental organisation supported by 31 States. Established in 1975, ECMWF is renowned worldwide as providing the most accurate medium-range global weather forecasts to fourteen days and monthly and seasonal forecasts. Its products are provided to the National Weather Services, as a complement to their national short-range and climatological activities.

At its headquarters in Reading, one of the largest supercomputer complexes in Europe is linked by high-speed telecommunication lines to the computer systems of the national weather services of its supporting States. The Centre's computer system contains the world's largest archive of numerical weather prediction data.