Brussels, 20/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - The joint enterprise Galileo on Monday published the call for tenders for concession of the two final phases of the Galileo programme: the "deployment" (from 2006 to 2007) and "exploitation" (as of 2008) phases of the European satellite navigation system. This call for tenders kicks off the two-stage procedure to select the concession-holder: first there will be a preselection phase of operators, to be completed early next year; then a negotiation phase to allocate the concession, which should take until the end of 2004. Once this negotiation phase is over, Galileo will present a proposal for the allocation of the concession to the European Commission, which will, in turn, present a communication on the choice of concession-holder to Parliament and Council. The private company which obtains the concession will have to co-fund the building and commercial use of the system, with an irreversible commitment of almost 1.5 billion EUR. It will be responsible for running the system as a business whilst respecting very precise specifications, especially in terms of public service obligations on the continuity and guarantee of services provided, and develop the range of commercial services on offer. It will be placed under the aegis of the Supervisory Authority. The notice of concession was published in the Official Journal of 17/10/03.
The Galileo programme consists of three phases: 1) from 2002 to 2005, development of the satellites and the terrestrial parts of the system and validation of the system in orbit. The cost of this phase is 1.1 billion EUR funded jointly by the EU and the European Space Agency (ESA); 2) from 2006 to 2007, a deployment phase with the building and launch of the satellites and the completion of the terrestrial parts of the system. The cost of this phase is 2.1 billion EUR, to be covered principally by the future concession holder. The proportion of public funding will be determined at the same time as the future concession holder is selected; 3) as of 2008, the commercial exploitation phase of the system.