Brussels, 26/02/2007 (Agence Europe) - Wolfgang Tiefensee, German Transport Minister, who, on Friday 23 February in Berlin, waited in vain for the arrival of directors of eight companies that are part of the consortium chosen for the European satellite navigation system, Galileo, does not appreciate the way industry is behaving. He said: “I view the current delays in the negotiations on the Galileo concession with concern. The companies involved have still not established their Galileo Operation Company and have not appointed a Chief Executive Officer for the company. This means that the companies have failed to honour two major pledges which they gave in their December 2005 agreement on the creation of workable management and organisational structures”. He went on to say: “As a result, the companies involved are seriously jeopardising the implementation of the Galileo satellite system. As president of the Council of the EU, I have urged the eight companies (…) to submit, within two weeks, detailed concrete proposals as to how they intend to solve their problems. We will discuss the delays on this basis at the next EU Transport Council in Brussels at the end of March”.
After more than one year of negotiations that have been unfruitful to the point of coming to a standstill, the German minister had convened the CEOs of eight companies - EADS, Alcatel-Lucent, Thales, Finmeccanica, Inmarsat, Hispasat, AENA and TeleOp - to a meeting last Thursday in Berlin. Although the CEOs themselves did not take up the invitation, they did send representatives to the meeting. This attitude above all reflects the position of force held today by the consortium, born of the merger of the two initial candidates, compared to a public-private partnership that is not working well, to the point that the Galileo Surveillance Authority has suspended all negotiation. After having initially accepted the Galileo specifications, the companies concerned are currently seeking to have the public sector cover part of the investment.
But time is short. At this stage, only an experimental satellite has been placed in orbit. By the end of 2008, the European Space Agency is to launch four satellites to validate the system and the consortium should launch another 26 to complete the constellation. (oj)