Luxembourg, 09/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - At their meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday 9 October, the EU's finance ministers again stressed the importance of the EU's satellite navigation programme, Galileo, but failed to reach agreement on how to fund it. During a long debate in Luxembourg, most of the concerns were a re-run of issues raised by the ECOFIN Council in July 2007 (see EUROPE 9466) and repeated last week by transport ministers (see EUROPE 9514). Many member states want the ECOFIN Council to take charge of funding issues for Galileo, wanting better preparation of the upcoming meeting in November to enable progress to be made.
Germany regretted that the European Commission's proposal, unveiled on 19 September 2007 (see EUROPE 9505), had ruled out all options apart from funding from the EU budget, taking absolutely no account of views expressed in July. Generally sharing Germany's view, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands also do not want to open the Financial Perspectives up for negotiation again. The United Kingdom wants to avoid creating a precedent of making changes to the Financial Perspectives and says the European Commission's ideas lack clarity on costs. This doubt is shared by Austria, which also wants the November discussions to be better prepared. With this in mind, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck said he hoped the details of the European Commission's proposal would be examined by a working group.
Italy is more in favour of the European Commission's proposal but Italy's economy and finance minister, Tommaso Padoa Schioppa, also called for greater preparations ahead of the ECOFIN Council meeting in November. France says the proposal is a good working basis but greater redeployment of funds from Heading 1a (Competitiveness) would be feasible. The Commission focuses on monies available under Heading 2 (Agriculture) and 5 (Administration), but Poland and the Czech Republic want the idea of funding under 1a to be looked into. This option is not shared by Denmark due to its concerns about funding for research. (ab)