Brussels, 16/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - China is goring to be involved in the European Galileo project through an agreement expected to be signed on Thursday 18 September in Peking. The Galileo project aims to provide Europe (by 2008) with a radio-navigation and satellite positioning system that covers the globe and which is civilian controlled. The agreement with China will allow for cooperation in research and implementation of technology and its application. European companies will therefore be able to work with Chinese partners in order to respond to tenders offered in these areas. The agreement is also expected to see China being in a position to participate financially in the joint Galileo company, which is responsible for the current project development phase up to the control and private contractual stage in 2006. A European source stressed the benefit of allying itself with "the largest market in the world" with Europe being to benefit from this country equipping itself in accordance with Galileo standards rather than USA GPS standards. For the moment, only the US with GPS and Russia with Glonass have radio-satellite navigation systems with world cover.
Once the agreement with China is initialled, it is then expected to be presented to the Transport Council on 9 October before being formally signed during the EU-China summit on 30 October in the Chinese capital. Negotiations have been swift with the negotiations mandate with China being granted by the Council to the Commission in March. Negotiations with the USA, opposed for a long time to the European project are difficult but are still being pursued. They focus on the inter-operability of the frequencies of the two systems.