Brussels, 23/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - On Saturday, transport Commissioner, Loyola de Palacio and the Us secretary of state Colin Powell will sign the agreement on coexistence and complete inter-operability between the future European satellite navigation system, Galileo and the US GPS system. De Palacio welcomed the signing of the agreement by pointing out to the press that "Galileo has not always been an easy adventure". The Commissioner also indicated that the decision on the future Galileo operative could be taken in November or by the end of the year at the latest (EUROPE 7 February p 8) and pointed out that the cooperation agreement with Israel would be signed in July (EUROPE 18 March). The Commission is also expected to go to Brazil and Mexico next week to discuss possible cooperation with the two countries regarding Galileo.
It will therefore have needed two years following the EU/USA negotiations to get an agreement on the modalities for GPS/Galileo coexistence. As soon as it is operational, in 2008, the Galileo system will have 30 satellites (GPS has 24) including the first two to be launched at the end of next year. Galileo will emit five kinds of signal: an open and free one (like the US GPS system); a commercial signal; a signal for applications linked to security; a secure governmental signal for public administrations and a so-called "safeguard signal.
The agreement concluded last February (EUROPE of 27 February) helped to resolve the final outstanding points, by agreeing: 1) to separate the Galileo governing signal from the military GPS signal, to allow the US, if necessary, to scramble the Galileo signal without scrambling their military signal (and vice-versa), whilst stipulating that this cannot extend beyond the area in question; 2) to ensure the coexistence of open GPS and Galileo signals, allowing users to pick up signals from both systems; 3) to define possibilities for flexibility and evolution in both systems, under the four "technical" documents annexed to the agreement.
At Ms de Palacio's press conference, the director of DG Transport of the European Commission, Heinz Hilbrecht, pointed out that Galileo is a civilian system, and that there is no question, for the time being, of using it for military purposes. A decision to this effect would have to be taken by the Council, he added. Responding to concerns voiced by various journalists, Mr Hilbrecht added that the co-operation agreements on Galileo concluded between the EU and third countries in no way justified exemptions to the application of the international regime on exports of sensitive technologies. This regime bans EU Member States from transferring certain technologies to third countries, such as China. Galileo's involvement will not entail the transfer of these technologies to China, explained Mr Hilbrecht.