Galileo originated as a “Euro-nationalist” response to the success of America’s GPS. As the program developed, some in Europe sought to use it as a way to limit and control US military power. This was the heart of the transatlantic “frequency overlay” dispute that ended with the EU backing down. The Europeans had registered certain frequencies with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), that were dangerously close to the ones the US planned to use for the future military GPS 3 signal. They were hoping that the Pentagon would have to accept that the use of this signal would be regulated by a joint US-EU committee in which the EU, particularly France, would have a veto power over US satellite navigation warfare.
In essence, the European goal was to insure that if the US went to war against the will of the EU, it would do so without the advantages that its GPS system has given it.