EU disagrees on the financial resources for the Galileo satellite system

At the meeting of the European Union Minister for Telecommunications and Transport (EU) on October 2, EU countries agreed to accelerate the development of Galileo navigation satellite system project to compete with US Global Positioning System (GPS), but still not agreed on spending billions of euros from the EU budget for this project.

The project objective is to have 30 satellites in orbit in 2013. (Photo: Labor)

The UK, the Netherlands and Germany led the opposition to using 2.4 billion euros (3.3 billion USD) in the EU budget to save the Galileo system, after private capital was depleted due to 8 companies failing Most are about job division. The proposed financial source can be mobilized from unused administrative and agricultural expenses. However, this mobilization will lead to the revision of the 2007-2013 EU budget draft that the member countries have adopted.

Despite disagreements about financial resources, Portugal's Transport Minister, Mario Lino-chairman of the meeting, still believes that EU leaders will agree on supporting a system of 30 satellites. This is at the summit in Brussels in mid-December.

Germany opposes the use of the budget of 27 EU member states and proposes to use financial resources from the European Aeronautics Agency (ESA) of 17 member countries.

PV