Brussels, 10/02/2005 (AN/NA) - Under the intriguing title “Système Galileo: Europe se saborde” (transl.: Galileo system: Europe sinks its ship), Jean-Pol Poncelet set the cat among the pigeons by asserting in Le Monde that, under combined pressure from the United States and a number of European national interests, Europe has had to give up using Galileo for military purposes. Although it is true that Europe still finds it hard to accept its new military dimension, the former Belgian defence minister was barking up the wrong tree, Community experts say. Others go still further and reproach Jean-Pol Poncelet, who is currently Director of Strategy and External Relations at the European Space Agency, for not having raised the real problems facing Europe's strategic autonomy.
“Given the veto and the pressure applied on all sides, Europeans have finally decided to have an autonomous navigation and positioning system that would not be used for peaceful purposes only - a commercial-based civil programme to the service of this Europe of traders that is so disparaged. Which means that, in future, the European armed forces may depend, for their operations, on the good will of their American colleagues and their GPS”, Jean-Pol Poncelet writes, adding: “We might as well say that the United States has achieved what it set out to do without even having to fight for it, as its rival has sabotaged its own interests”. “Quite wrong!”, European Commission sources retort, stressing that the “agreement signed with the United States does not rule out military use of Galileo - on the contrary, it ensures that the GPS system and Galileo can exist at the same time”. This agreement contains provisions to ensure: - there is no technical interference between systems, even during times of crisis; - equal treatment between the two partners, with the possibility to interrupt the signals of both or just one system by scrambling signals during military operations in times of crisis; - and the commitment to conclude a security agreement with a view to providing mutual information and cooperation on security aspects in the broadest sense, mainly relating to decisions taken in times of crisis.
In the Council's conclusions of 10 December 2004, the Commission managed to have the Galileo system include a Public Regulated Service with use strictly reserved for governments. Technically, this service will perform in a way that is comparable to a military system in terms of precision, protection and robustness (the precision of the Galileo commercial version, to within one metre, is already greater than the precision of GPS but should be caught up by the GPS III version planned for 2012). The Commission has been entrusted with the task of developing a proposal on access to this service. In the context of the proposal, which should be presented by the end of the year; it is now an acquired fact that the military and security forces will have receivers able to pick up the signals of the secure system, Commission sources say, stressing that it is possible to differentiate between the type of usage but not between the type of user. Why? Firstly because in several Member States, although some security forces and especially the gendarmerie have military status, they fulfil missions that are essentially civil in nature, and also because the military are increasingly called upon in times of natural disasters for humanitarian missions or for civil protection operations.
Politically, the Council of Transport Ministers confirmed Galileo's civil vocation but also explicitly stressed the possibility of military use. Activation of such use would nonetheless require an unanimous decision from Council and, within the Commission, formal recognition is needed to open the possibility. One should never lose sight of the fact that Europe has existed for half a century without touching on military issues and that, despite the gradual appearance of a defence policy - and the first uniforms in buildings of the institutions - over the past ten years, some psychological and semantic obstacles still remain. The modest title of “preparatory action for security research” was thus chosen to describe the tool that would make it possible to develop research support activities conducted by the larger companies in the defence sector. Not all Member States find such diffidence to their taste, however, and some - especially France - did not hesitate to recall that the frequencies used by Galileo were allocated by the ITU to the Member States that thus maintain the individual right to use Galileo for military purposes if ever the system were to be restricted to civilian use at Union level.
But this is not yet the case. Work in the context of European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) very clearly stresses that the essential aspect of Galileo is for conducting military operations. Galileo is part of the vital military cooperation infrastructure in the Council's document of 16 November 2004 on ESDP and space policy. Furthermore, the Council also adopted, in June last year, a joint action proposed by the Commission setting in place the instrument needed for decision-making in the event of crisis.
This instrument comes under the responsibility of the High Representative who, during crises, takes decisions on behalf of the 25, Commission sources recall, stressing that Galileo is therefore the first strategic security infrastructure under EU control. Javier Solana thus becomes the guarantor ensuring the system will be well used, mainly with regard to the United States. The instrument meets one of the concerns of the agreement with Americans allowing the High Representative to act in order to avoid any deviation of the Galileo signal and thus prevent possible scrambling by the United States (which could use their Navigational Warfare system to this end).
In reality, those taking part in the project today have other concerns linked to the technical fulfilment of Galileo. After political hold-ups, the system is now faced with problems of a technological kind and industrial delays. Some sources speak of the system becoming operational in 2010 although it was scheduled to start in 2008. Now, it is a real race against time. A race for which the umpire will be Russia, one expert states, considering that Europe's strategic autonomy could be brought into question.
The allocation of frequencies by ITU is subject to at least two satellites being placed in orbit by 2006. According to the same specialist, Europe would encounter problems when it comes to satellites and launching systems. In both cases, the solution could come from Russia. On the subject of delivery systems, Europe anxiously awaits the results of Ariane 5 ECA's qualifying test shot, to be held in Kourou on Friday. This 10-tonne version of the European delivery system is the embodiment of autonomous access to space, after the earlier attempt failed. The weight of Ariane 5 is currently 8 tonnes and the satellites of the Galileo system require launching systems that can carry 12 tonnes. Solutions may be found in the use of a Soyouz missile (the Russian system should start launching at the space centre in Guyana in 2008) or a Russian Fregate system, which could be installed on the second level of an Ariane missile, the expert states. Satellites, however, could also fail to be ready in time and the solution to be envisaged if this were to happen would be the provisional adjustment of satellites from the Russian Glonass system to the Galileo configurations. As it never rains but it pours, a report by two French senior officials, mentioned by Les Echos on 9 February, contemplates abandoning the Ariane 5, for which maintenance costs European taxpayers EUR 400 million annually. The same report considers that the results of the Galileo satellite navigation and positioning system are “uncertain”. (Source: our publication Atlantic News).