RSSEU Proposes Bailout of Galileo Sat Nav Project
By the Betanews Staff | Published September 19, 2007, 4:26 PM
Galileo, once billed as a potential rival to the US Department of Defense's GPS system, is now facing serious issues following disagreements over the development of the system by eight companies tasked with its build-out. However, the European Commission is proposing to shift money in the bloc's 2007-2013 budget to come up with extra funds to ensure its completion. Public funds were initially supposed to cover about one-third of the cost, said to be around 3.5 billion euros.
EU officials say the additional money -- some 2.4 billion euros -- will come from unspent money elsewhere. They are making the case by saying that the Galileo project is a strategic necessity, and would lessen the dependence on the US GPS system. The EU's positioning system would improve coverage in higher latitudes, and be interoperable with the GPS system through a recently announced deal. Member countries will still need to approve the bailout before it can proceed, however.
What's funny is how the US always wants everything to be privatized and done by private companies and Europe many times takes the opposite direction, while in this instance the EU wanted private companies to provide a service and it's failing but the US government built GPS system has been running smoothly for nearly three decades.
Kind of ironic.
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Good to hear it's likely to get some money.
I hope it does make it off the ground.
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