Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) is a joint initiative of the European Commission and European Space Agency, which aims at achieving an autonomous and operational Earth observation capacity.
The objective is to rationalize the use of multiple-sources data to get a timely and quality information, services and knowledge, and to provide autonomous and independent access to information in relation to environment and security. In other words, it will pull together all the information obtained by environmental satellites, air and ground stations to provide a comprehensive picture of the "health" of Earth.
GMES is the European Union contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems GEOSS.
'Copernicus' is the new name for the GMES programme (June 2013). 
