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Just another grand talking shop or the kernel from which something really quite interesting could grow?

Ministers from 29 European Space Agency (Esa) and European Union (EU) member states will tip up at just outside Prague in the Czech Republic on Friday.

The attendees - which will also include industrialists and academics - are going to discuss Europe's current role in the human exploration of space and how it might change in the future.

Europe is feeling rather good about itself on this issue right now, and with good reason.

Its astronaut is the current commander of the International Space Station (ISS); it has a sophisticated science lab () in orbit; and an impressive robotic which will play a leading role in keeping the ISS fully supplied and functional in the years ahead.

But Europe is : the independent means to send its own astronauts into orbit.

And that means most of what Europe does in the realm of human space exploration, it does so at the invitation of the Americans or the Russians.

Europe has looked at developing its own crew transport system in the past - notably the - but it has shied away from carrying through sometimes extensive research into an operational system.

Money is an issue, of course. Crew transport systems are not cheap to develop. Just ask the US space agency, which is spending something like $300m a month on developing the various elements of its new .

And looking at Esa's budget line, it's difficult to see where one would find the extra sums needed to produce a manned launch system. Enter, perhaps, the EU.

For those not familiar with how Europe organises itself, it is necessary to realise that Esa and the EU are separate entities; their memberships, although similar, are by no means facsimiles of each other. Esa includes member states that are not in the EU and vice versa.

Nonetheless, in recent years, the two organisations have forged a closer working relationship. They have combined on two multi-billion-euro space projects: one to develop a GPS-like sat-nav system called ; and the other to develop an Earth-monitoring programme called .

The EU saw a political imperative to initiate these two space projects, and called in "the experts" at Esa to try to make them happen.

If you've been following the debate about the , you'll know also that space is to be regarded as a shared responsibility for the EU and its member states.

So could we now see Brussels extend its interests from sat-nav and Earth observation into human space exploration as well?

Don't expect grand announcements from Stirin Castle. This is the start of something, not an end point. Stephan Nonneman is head of the European Commission's Space Policy and Coordination Unit. He told me:

"The intention is to launch the debate on a political level. We will start a process. We will probably have a second conference in a year's time. In the meantime, Commission services together with Esa and the member states are going to explore scenarios, evaluate socio-economic impacts, and study the problematics.
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We will then have the second conference where the results of this one will be put on the table for further discussion."

to work out how its ISS freighter could be upgraded, first to have the capability to bring cargo safely back to Earth but also - perhaps - to act as a manned spaceship.

Such a vehicle would be launched on the Ariane 5, just as Hermes was designed to do. It might cost five billion euros to make it happen. The assessment will give us a clearer figure.

But if the European Union sees a political imperative in human space exploration then the experts at Esa could conceivably have some extra money behind them to deliver an independent astronaut transport system.

It's all good speculation. Watch this space.

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