With no unpleasant surprises, the EU’s transport ministers, gathered for their Council meeting in Luxembourg on 7 April, unanimously ratified the informal agreement, concluded with the European Parliament several days earlier, on Galileo, the European satellite navigation programme. The agreement was welcomed with a thundering “Vive Galileo” by EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot, which shows very well the general relief after the multiple setbacks that the programme has already had to overcome. The commissioner affirmed that “there is now a solid basis for Galileo to succeed”. And he is all the more at ease saying it since in a few days, on 27 April, Giove B, the programme’s second test satellite will be launched from the space centre in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

The Council’s agreement takes the form of general guidelines on the proposal for a regulation which defines the major implementation principles of Galileo’s deployment and operation phase. It is, in principle, the definitive schema: it will be authorised by the European Parliament’s Industry Committee on 8 April, so it can quickly be approved in the plenary session. This could be also in April.

From there, the EU will have a legal basis to finance the follow-up of operations since the new regulation specifies in black and white the amount of funding to be allocated to Galileo during the 2007-2013 period (€3.4 billion). It also determines the rules for awarding public procurement contracts and for the programme’s governance. With a few nuances, resulting from negotiations in Parliament, these are the rules on which transport ministers agreed in late 2007 (see Europolitics3425). They are the result of a difficult balance between respecting competition rules in the awarding contracts and the need to take into account the ‘fair return’ requirements for member states’ industries.

To recall, the talks with MEPs allowed agreements to be reached after the modification of two essential points: the Galileo surveillance authority and MEPs’ role in the follow-up of the programme. The surveillance authority, which the EP’s Industry Committee initially proposed removing, was saved. But it role is adapted, without challenging the ‘chain of command’ previously defined: the European Commission will assume the role of commander, while the European Space Agency will be the project supervisor. The surveillance authority will be granted tasks linked to the programme’s safety, the marketing of the system, as well as “other tasks that the Commission could give it” (the text cites, as an example, the promotion of applications and the control of certification of system components). This new role will necessitate the modification of Community Regulation 1321/2004 which establishes the surveillance authority since, at the start, it was set out that it takes care of the concession of the programme. The Commission should make its proposal for an adaptation quickly.

The Parliament wanted to be closely involved in the project’s follow-up: as per its request, an interinstitutional group (dubbed ‘GIP’, Galileo Interinstitutional Panel) will gather in principle four times per year to follow up progress in assigning contracts, international agreements made with third countries, preparation of the markets, effectiveness of governance and the annual work programme. Three representatives from the Council, three from the Parliament and one from the Commission will hold seats on the panel. A sort of political responsibility, while formally it will not have any decision making power. Moreover, it is not reiterated in the body of the regulation and is only subject to a declaration from the three institutions, which specifies that the panel does not affect the distribution of responsibilities defined in the regulation.