eu4journalists

Space Policy

3. Global Navigation (Galileo)

Issues:

• European global navigation satellite system under civilian control
• interoperable with GPS and GLONASS
• guaranteed quality of service for emergency operations
• cost of setting up Galileo

GPS, or Global Positioning System, has become a household name. What first stood for expensive and bulky equipment which in the 1990s was only installed in executive limousines and offshore boats. Since the year 2000, GPS has entered the average household’s car with portable, pocket-sized GPS devices costing around €200. The latest GPS receivers are so compact that they are included in some mobile phones, PDAs or wristwatches for joggers.

The business and politics behind GPS reveals how political decisions determine industry policy. GPS is in fact the US Global Positioning System, which is ruled by military authorities. Traditionally, GPS for civil use was accurate in the range of a hundred meters, while the military could access the full information to have accuracies of a few meters – GPS as we know it today. However, the present GPS system is ruled by the right of the US to withdraw the most precise signal. In 2000, the US government signed an order disabling “selective availability,” which limited highest-position information to military use. The entity managing GPS confirmed the intention to never re-apply selective availability. But, there is no guarantee for this in times of war or political disagreement. This fact makes it nearly impossible to build automatic landing systems for aeroplanes relying on GPS signals. In the 1990s, the shortcoming of GPS for civilian users and possibly the worldwide success of the European mobile-telephony system GPS triggered the idea of a separate, European navigation satellite system with high and guaranteed accuracy. This development surely influenced the decision of the US authorities, to disable selective availability. Since 2000, many new European companies entered the GPS end user market, challenging the competitive advantage and dominant market position of existing US manufacturers in this sector.

Galileo, launched by the European Union and the European Space Agency with international partners like China and India, will be Europe’s own global navigation satellite system, providing a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service under civilian control. It will be interoperable with the United States’ GPS and the Russian GLONASS, the two other global satellite navigation systems. GALILEO, named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, is based on a constellation of 30 satellites and ground stations providing information concerning the positioning of users in many sectors such as transport (vehicle location, route searching, speed control, guidance systems, etc.), public works (geographical information systems), search-and-rescue systems or leisure (direction-finding at sea or in the mountains).

Despite past doubts, the agreement to launch the European Global Navigation Satellite Programmes - GALILEO and EGNOS (so-called augmentation system that is based on GPS signals and that transmits additional correction signals in order to allow terrestrial receivers to calculate their location with much higher accuracy than possible with GPS only. EGNOS is foreseen in particular for aviation and will be the initial backbone of the European Air Traffic Management System before Galileo becomes operational) - was reached on 29-30 November, 2007, at the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council meeting in Brussels. After long negotiations, 26 out of 27 EU ministers in charge of transport agreed on the European Commission’s industrial tendering plan, which sets out the division of work between the EU’s main aerospace industries for putting GALILEO in place. Only Spain voted against the plan, disappointed about the rejection of its bid to host a Galileo ground control centre.

The budgetary resources required for funding the European GNSS programmes are set at €3.4 billion for the period 2007 - 2013. Following the decision on the EU’s draft general budget for 2008 made at the Economic and Financial Affairs Council meeting on 23 November, 2007, GALILEO will be funded entirely from the Community budget. Based on this agreement, the additional public funding of €2.4 billion required to bring the total to €3.4 billion, will be covered mainly through unused Community funds (€1.6 billion taken from agricultural expenditure not used in 2007). The rest will be financed by the redeployment of funds intended for programmes that do not come under co-decision, the re-prioritisation of certain amounts earmarked for research and the unused margins of the Financial Perspective 2007-2013 (Competitiveness and growth).

The European Commission can now start implementing the next phase of the European GNSS programmes, i.e. the deployment of GALILEO. This includes the operational availability of EGNOS within the next two years as well as the procurement of GALILEO, which shall lead to an operational system by 2013.

According to a 2007 Eurobarometer public opinion survey on Galileo, Europeans are highly positive about the Galileo program. The survey indicates that most EU citizens are aware of the role global positioning systems play in their everyday lives, know about possible applications and are firmly behind the development of such new technologies. Furthermore, an overwhelming majority believe Europe should set up an independent navigation system even if this involves securing additional public funds. “Therefore, we will continue the work with Member States and industry to complete this major European innovation project and get the most out of our investments,” European Commission Vice-President Jacques Barrot said in June 2007 when he presented the results of the survey, which was based on interviews of around 26,000 citizens all over the European Union on a range of issues linked to Galileo and satellite positioning systems in general.