Brussels, 11/05/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday La Tribune announced that the two consortiums ¡NavSat and Eurly, which had previously been competing for the Galileo concession were prepared to merge. The newspaper also explained that on 10 May the two groups had presented a common draft for a joint enterprise. Since March, the joint enterprise created by the Commission and the European Space Agency has been examining the two offers in parallel and this has delayed a decision. The Commission would have liked to avoid such a merger and had even included banning mergers in the conditions, in an effort to ensure the maintaining of a certain level of competition when the concession is renewed. Answering the question of whether the Commission could change its mind on this point, Stefaan De Rynck, spokesperson for the transport European Commissioner remained evasive and very cautious. He confirmed that, “the Commission had heard of a possible merger” but he was keen to point out that for the time being nothing was on the table. In such a hypothesis he declared that the Commission, nevertheless, regarded this merger as bringing added value and that legal, economic and financial criteria would be strictly examined.