Galileo Is A “Go”… Funding Found

From the EuroNews online information site comes the information that Galileo is a finally a confirmed GO… the European Union (EU) reached agreement on the funding for the Global Positioning System (GPS) that will become a rival to the U.S.-based system. There is going to be a †2.5 billion shortfall in the start-up costs… these will be made up by using the unspent money from other projects approved by the EU.





The representative from Portugal stated some of the necessary funding will be derived from the EU’s agricultural budget, but the money had already been earmarked for public spending, so there was no disagreement. Future budgets monies were not garnered by the Galileo project. Apparently Germany remained opposed to the agreement—the country was outvoted. Their reason for the opposition was due to the use of unspent funds, due to the precedent such sets. The deal came to fruition after the European Commission (EC) proposed tenders for Galileo to meet the German demands that no single aerospace firm should dominate the project. Those in favor of this project believe it is a vital technology platform for Europe—those opposed believe it could be a costly white elephant as the US system already has market domination and both China and Russia are hard at work on their own GPS systems.