EU funded construction of European GPS system

EU ministers have just agreed to provide initial funding for a project to build a common European satellite navigation system called Galileo, which is expected to be a rival of similar US GPS systems.

Over the weekend, EU countries agreed on an agreement that would finance the ambitious Galileo satellite navigation project. This initial capital of 2.4 billion Euro (3.55 billion USD) will be drawn from the EU budget.

According to a spokesman for the EU, Germany - the largest contributor to the EU budget out of 27 countries - voted against the decision but was not valid by the majority of countries that agreed to approve it.

The agreement between EU ministers was made after the European Commission (EC) proposed partners to participate in Galileo in order to respect Germany's opinion that no space agency would have full control. this system.

EU leaders have warned that the Galileo project may be stopped if there is no agreement on capital among members before the end of this year.

Supporters argue that Galileo will be a vital technology platform for Europe, while protesters argue that it will be an expensive machine because the US has a GPS system strong enough to take over. field, and Russia and China also have their own GPS systems.

Galileo's total cost is estimated at 3.4 billion euros ($ 5.1 billion), mainly mobilized from public capital after private companies refuse to participate because they think it is too risky. dangerous.

The EC divided the process of building Galileo into six stages and prohibited any company from participating in more than two of the six periods.

Galileo will have a total of 30 satellites built by industrial complexes including companies EADS, Thales and Alcatel-Lucent (France). Initially there were also some companies like Inmarsat, Finmeccanica (Italy), AENA and Hispasat (Spain), Deutsche Telekom (Germany) who planned to join but eventually withdrew.

Van Han