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Europe
EU clinches unanimous Galileo deal
2007-12-01
BRUSSELS - European Union nations reached unanimous agreement on Friday on the future of the Galileo satellite navigation project, after allaying concerns from Spain. Galileo is a long-delayed European project to build a satellite network to challenge the dominance of the US-built Global Positioning System (GOS), which is widely used in satellite navigation devices.

“The presidency announces that it was possible to have the agreement of all the delegations, without exception, on Galileo,” said Portuguese Transport Minister Mario Lino, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency. “We have always thought that it was best to be united on a project that is so important for Europe,” he said.

In a move overnight that deeply angered Spain, Portugal changed the voting system to reach a deal on the flagship project, allowing a qualified majority vote, rather than the unanimous decision that is usually required.

Under the deal sealed late Thursday, Spain would play host to a ”Safety of Life” ground centre dedicated to civil protection, in particular in the area of maritime, air and rail security. But it had demanded that, like Germany and Italy, it be allowed to host a control centre for the future 30-satellite scheme aimed at showcasing Europe’s hi-tech know-how and due to come into operation in 2013.

Under the compromise reached Friday, its “Safety of Life” centre would “be qualified” as a control centre by 2013, allowing Madrid to supervise operation of the satellites and their transmissions to Earth. “The Spanish centre, once it is up and running from a technical point of view, would act as a control centre along with the others” in Germany and Italy, EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot explained.
Just dividing the boodle, it seems. Why Galileo is so important to the Euros as anything other than a high-tech, expensive make-work project isn't clear.
The controversy is just the latest in a series that has dogged the system. Work on Galileo, a project already running five years behind the initial schedule, stalled this year as cost over-runs piled up, private contractors bickered and member states lobbied for their own industrial interests. As the original public-private partnership involving a consortium of eight European companies fell apart, the European Commission recommended that the project should be relaunched using public money entirely.

Meanwhile the US military is already working on super-powerful updates to its GPS technology to try to trump Galileo before it even gets up in the air, according to military experts there.
Posted by:Steve White

#10  ed nails it. Also, when Galileo was proposed originally, the French and Germans planned to sell it to China as well.
Posted by: lotp   2007-12-01 20:28  

#9  Yes, Pappy. We believe that the dinosaurs died off after an iridium-laden meteor or comet hit the Earth. Perhaps we'll know Europe has died out in the same way.

(Don't tell me; I know.)
Posted by: Eric Jablow   2007-12-01 13:11  

#8  Can you say 'Iridium'?
Posted by: Pappy   2007-12-01 12:29  

#7  It's about GPS weaponry. All European GPS weapons rely on the goodwill of the US to operate. Therefore they are not exportable to nations not in good standing with the US. This way the French get the other EU nations to pay for 90% or so of the Galileo system (probably $15B for a full constellation) and rake in 100% of any Galileo weapons sales.
Posted by: ed   2007-12-01 10:30  

#6  The article doesn't mention that the funding was provided by transferring funds from agricultural budgetr to Galileo.

Hint: One of the keys of democarcy is Parlamentary control over spending: ie governmentr is not free to spend money as it wants but has to spend the mùon,ey on what it was voted with only minor powers of reassigning funding, not without a vote.

EU democrcay at work.
Posted by: JFM   2007-12-01 10:17  

#5  World-Island

Also, the idea of a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis as seen during the prelude to OIF, or the russian eurasists, who have ideological counterparts in western Europe, with the idea of an alliance of continental cultures closer to each others than to the materialistical, imperialistical anglo-saxons.
Posted by: anonymous5089   2007-12-01 09:53  

#4  Why Galileo is so important to the Euros as anything other than a high-tech, expensive make-work project isn't clear.

If your ambition is to rival the USA, by eventually having that "heartland" Great Power (enlarged EUrabia with turkey, russia, north africa, possibly Israel), with ties to china, then it is logical to have your own GPS system, should you ever need it in anger.

I'm not saying the EU will ever be that "empire", it's just I really think it's the ultimate goal. Some kind of transnational, bureaucratic, constructivist hubris, not much unlike the late USSR, just more PC and festive.
Posted by: anonymous5089   2007-12-01 09:47  

#3  The EU, will never be a United States...and I am not sure how long we will the United States either.
Posted by: Enver Uloper1117   2007-12-01 08:03  

#2  A desperate attempt to feel relevant.

"But we don't want to be dependent upon the Americans for our GPS"

Ok, then why is it all right to be dependent upon the muzzies for your basic energy supplies? Cause you're the ones buying the crude.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2007-12-01 07:49  

#1  Total waste of money. 2 other systems currently exist with China and maybe India doing 3rds and 4ths.
so 5 systems doing the same thing?
Posted by: 3dc   2007-12-01 00:46  

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