ESA’s Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) selected the new candidates for possible future scientific missions.
At the end of this process, two missions will be proposed for implementation with launches planned for 2017 and 2018.
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM1IQAMS7F_index_0.html

The candidates are :
- Laplace, studying the Jovian system
- Tandem, a new mission to Saturn, Titan and Enceladus
- Cross-scale, deeper study of near-earth space
- Marco Polo, an asteroid sample-return mission
- Dune, the dark universe investigator
- Space, the new near-infrared all-sky cosmic explorer
- Plato, the new planet finder
- Spica, the next generation infrared observatory
- Xeus, X-ray Evolving Universe Spectroscopy

Great news! My favourite candidate is there, Athena Coustenis' Tandem, and I like Plato too, just because...

...See what I mean?
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I hope they do Laplace--We sorely need another mission to the Galileans--I just hope the three-satellite proposal isn't over-reaching.

Another vote for Laplace here

I noticed that both of the outer planets missions they are studying indicate an anticipated (or hoped for) collaboration with NASA.

That was interesting considering the grumbling noises that came out of ESA during and after the Cassini-Huygens mission. A lot of people were reportedly annoyed at the level of difficulty encountered when dealing with NASA, in particular all of the rules reguarding technology transfer.

Then again, I noticed that the asteroid mission mentioned a collaboration with JAXA.

Given that Bepi-Colombo is being done with JAXA, I get the sense that ESA considers the large flagship missions to be too large for going it alone.

My fantasy is that ESA and NASA cooperate on both Jovian and Titan missions, and we can get them both flown before I'm too old and enfeebled to care... But I'd pick Jupiter, first. Give time for the Titan data from Cassini to be analyzed.

I believe that the Titan probe would be more time critical than the Europa one, and that it should fly first. It is only a matter of launch windows, and a Cassini-like Jupiter+Saturn launch window will open (I guess) in the second half of the 2010s, while the Europa probe has a launch window every 13 months.
Beside that, I would have liked one of the General Relativity proposals, either ASTROD or LATOR to make the final shortlist. Europe has been working on that concept for 40 years now and it would be time to fly one.

What is the expected budget for each mission?

From a strictly planetary science view, which moon in the solar system is most compelling?

There are as many opinions on that as there are moons. They're ALL interesting, they're ALL compelling.

Doug

To paraphrase George Orwell: all moons are interesting but some moons are more interesting than others.

Yeah, I'd second that. I sometimes express that sentiment 'Titan is more planet than many planets,
however you choose to define the term'.

But on another note, the NASA Enceladus and JSO Flagship study reports are now up
on the OPAG website
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/announcements.html

(Europa and Titan reports still pending)

Il n'y aura pas Laplace pour tous les projets!
Sorry, just a play of words for french speaking members.
Anyway, I vote Laplace too

I'd say the rough order is probably Europa (astrobio), Titan (surface/atmosphere), Io (volcanism), and Ganymede (might have an ocean too). There's a pretty good chance that the next NASA outer planets flagship mission will be a Europa orbiter, so a European mission to Titan would be a nice complement. Likewise, if the flagship goes to Titan, the ESA will probably to Jupiter...

Simon

Full inline quote removed - Doug

I don't think that either NASA or ESA has the money to fly a mission solo to either target. I think they'll pick one target and jointly fund it. I wish we could get both.

Are ESA & NASA in fact engaged in this level of collaborative planning? (I hope so; seems like a true win-win as long as data sharing is unencumbered & associate investigators/liasons are assigned.)

The announcement of the next round of studies of Flagship missions said that the studies would be conducted with ESA and JAXA (although JAXA may have been mentioned only in Leonard David's piece). I believe the ESA announcement about their next round of big mission selections said they were looking to collaborate with NASA.