I saw this brief ESA blurb about a potential successor to the Kepler mission:
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMSHM7CS5G_index_0.html

It is under review along with Euclid and the Solar orbiter, but only 2 of these 3 missions will have funding to move forward. According the the website:
"The final decision about which missions to implement will be taken after the definition activities are completed, which is foreseen to be in mid-2011."

I found news on ESA's website that makes it appear that PLATO did not make the cut.
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=49385 ://http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/ob...objectid=49385

This is surprising to me considering that TESS was not selected by NASA, so it appears there are no follow up telescopes planet to expand upon Kepler's success, which is restricted to such a small survey site. I wonder if there might be another way to fund PLATO? The only other information I've gleaned so far is this website:
http://www.lesia.obspm.fr/perso/claude-catala/plato_web.html

Are these missions getting bumped in part due to the need to have JWST perform follow up studies? It'd be nice to see space telescopes getting fast-tracked instead of sidelined, and something else needs to replace Kepler in another 8 years.

Well, Kepler to me was more of a "reach into a bag of marbles and get some statistics on what's there" kind of mission. It won't tell us which exact nearby stars to look at, but rather which type of star is more likely to have Venus to Marsish planets. A followup JWST or other mission to examine all nearby star systems would be more valuable than another "reach" into the bag. There might be some science to do on a mission looking a different direction, to get a feel for how statistics vary depending upon metallicity of the star or spiral arms vs core vs halo, but the majority of the science would have already been done by Kepler.

Now, if nearby surveys *don't* find anything interesting, then a follow-on survey of more stars is warranted.