GALILEO, satellite navigation programme: state of progress, integration of the Egnos programme

PURPOSE : to present the communication on the state of progress with the programme in which it discusses various services offered by GALILEO. CONTENT : six months after the Council of Ministers finally launched the GALILEO European Satellite Radionavigation Project, the European Commission is continuing the development of this first major programme bringing together the EU and the European Space Agency. It adopted today a communication on the state of progress with the programme in which it discusses the various services offered by GALILEO, security questions, relations with the US, and international cooperation with other third countries. This communication takes stock of various major aspects of the development of the Galileo Programme. 1) Setting up the Galileo joint undertaking: there have been delays in setting setting up the Galileo Joint Undertaking following problems within the European Space Agency in finalising the respective contributions of the participating States contained in the programme declaration relating to Galileo. Some Member States are, mainly for political reasons, claiming the status of the foremost contributor to the programme, difficult situation to deal with in the framework of the European Space Agency Convention. If no solution is found in the short term, the matter will have to be referred to the European Union. The Joint Undertaking must be set up as quickly as possible so that the plan for the call for tenders for the development phase can be approved. If no decision is taken on this, the industrial operators involved will have the greatest difficulties in keeping their teams of engineers working on the project. When these problems have been overcome, the first meeting of the Administrative Board of the Joint Undertaking can be held, preceded by the meeting of the Supervisory Board in accordance with Article 3 of the Regulation. The Commission's representative on the Administrative Board of the Joint Undertaking has been appointed.According to the statutes, the Administrative Board must decide the following at its first meeting: the rules of procedure of the Administrative Board; the Agreement between the Joint Undertaking and the European Space Agency; the 2002 budget of the Joint Undertaking; the appointment of the Director of the Joint Undertaking, based on a proposal from the Commission. 2) System Security: the GALILEO Security Board has started its work. Its tasks are as follows: - defining the technical characteristics of the system with regard to security (encryption, etc.); - assisting the Commission in its negotiations with third countries, particularly on the issue of sharing frequencies with the US; - helping to draw up the proposal for the future security structure for GALILEO operational activities. 3) Defining services and the frequency plan: this definition is important in order to prepare for the next World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC) in July 2003. Galileo will offer several service levels, from open access to restricted access of various levels: - an open, free basic service, mainly involving applications for the general public and services of general interest. This services is comparable to that provided by civil GPS, which isfree of cost for these applications, but with improved quality and reliability; - a commercial service facilitating the development of professional applications and offering enhanced performance compared with the basic service, particularly in terms of service guarantee. - A "vital" service (Safety of Life Service) of a very high quality and integrity for safety-critical applications, such as aviation and shipping. - A search and rescue service that will greatly improve existing relief and rescue services. - A public regulated service (PRS), encrypted and resistant to jamming and interference, reserved principally for the public authorities responsible for civil protection, national security and law enforcement which demand a high level of continuity. It will enable secured applications to be developed in the European Union, and could prove in particular to be an important tool in improving the instruments used by the European Union to combat illegal exports and illegal immigration. 4) Relations with third countries : GALILEO is a worldwide system. It is therefore intended to serve users all over the world, and its deployment will necessitate a large measure of international cooperation to make it possible to derive maximum benefit from the GALILEO programme: it should help to increase European know-how and develop the satellite radionavigation market in third countires (ground-based equipment and applications). - Relations with the United States relations with the United States : the aim is to reach a cooperation agreement with the United States by the end of 2003, outlining the principles of interoperability and governing the commercial questions related to the use of Galileo and GPS. International cooperation is based in particular on the interoperability of GALILEO with the existing American and Russian systems so as to enable each user to receive signals from different systems using the same receiver. In this context, the negotiations with the US are reaching a decisive phase and the security questions concerning the procedures for using or interrupting signals in the event of a crisis were addressed at the latest meetings with the American authorities. - relations with other third countries : In its communication the Commission proposes guidelines for cooperation with a number of third countries. The means of association considered ranged from scientific and technical cooperation to full participation in the Joint Undertaking responsible for completing the development phase and preparing the subsequent phases of the programme. Many projects have already been launched to develop satellite radionavigation applications in the Mediterranean area, Latin America and the accession candidate countries. Activities are also being launched with China, Canada, Australia, Japan, Ukraine and India. �