EU satellite navigation crisis deepens as deadline nears.
May 9, 2007
By Peter Purton
The European Union is scrambling to find a way to save its planned satellite navigation system, dubbed Galileo, as it becomes clear that members of the consortium managing the project are failing to reach agreement in the eleventh hour of an approaching deadline.
On Monday, consortium members appeared far from an agreement, saying they would rather stay away from the project than be faced with financial risks without guarantees of returns. It now looks inevitable that the consortium will lose the European Union’s backing, coming as a May 10 deadline nears to set a framework and appoint a leader.
The development is significant because Galileo is Europe’s answer to the United States’ Global Positioning System (GPS) and Russia’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), both military funded and controlled.
A deadline had been set for Aena, Alcatel-Lucent, Deutsche Telekom, EADS, Finmeccanica, Hispasat, Inmarsat, and Thales to seek agreement on a legal structure and a chief executive (see Europe’s GPS System at Risk).
Now it appears as if few alternatives remain except to scrap the project or inject significant new public funds into it. Neither option is likely to appeal to European leaders as the first would mean a major image fiasco and the second a very unpopular use of tax money.
“Our view is that the current scenario to put Galileo into place cannot work,” said Michael Cercone, spokesman for European Commission transport commissioner Jacques Barrot. The Commission is due to present alternative plans to European transport ministers May 16. As well as pumping more money into it or dumping it altogether, another option would be to take over the project directly.
Initially the European initiative was opposed by the U.S. government, but opposition has since been relaxed. If Galileo goes ahead it will be the first non-government satellite positioning system and will be compatible with both GPS and GLONASS.
Galileo has been in planning since 1999 and it had been hoped that it would be in operation by 2008. Even if it does somehow go ahead it now looks as if a fully operational commercial service may not be available before 2014. And the initial hope that the public would pay only a third of the anticipated costs of 3.6 billion euros ($4.9 billion) looks lost.
Source: http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22230&hed=Europe%E2%80%99s+GPS+Loses+Signal§or=Industries&subsector=Communications
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