On Thursday 18 January, Spain received the backing of the GNSS Committee “by a very large majority" to become the Galileo Security Centre back up facility, which is currently based at Swanwick in the United Kingdom. The announcement was made by the spokesperson in chief for the European Commission, Margaritis Schinas, during a midday press conference.
The European Commission still needs to officially ratify the decision taken in committee proceedings, during the next meeting of the College on Wednesday 24 January. This decision confirms the information we received in this connection last week (see EUROPE 11937). Six member states were then in the running and included Belgium, Italy, Slovenia, Portugal, Romania and Spain. Poland and Germany withdrew from the procedure, as we reported.
The facility will be relocated to Madrid. The transfer of staff members will be carried out by April 2018 at the latest. The spokesperson in charge of the internal market and industry, Lucia Caudet, explained during a press conference that the facility in question, which is “still not fully operational", currently only involves a single full-time staff member. In the future, this facility is expected to bring together 3-30 people, she explained, a number that will be decided by the GNSS Agency itself (GSA).
On 20 December last, the Commissioner for the Internal Market and Industry, Elżbieta Bieńkowska, informed the College of Commissioners in this regard and submitted her analysis regarding the different candidacies on the basis of the different criteria (these included the speed with which the facility could be set up, the benefits and compensatory features provided; financial contribution and security risk mitigation).
It should be pointed out that the Galileo Security Monitoring Centre plays a key role in the Galileo programme and manages the Public Regulated Service(PRS), which provides encrypted navigation data to governments (see EUROPE 11663). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)