Brussels, 03/04/2008 (Agence Europe) - After an informal trilogue on Thursday 3 April, the Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission reached an agreement on the amended proposal for a regulation on continued implementation of the satellite radio-navigation programmes, EGNOS and Galileo. The compromise allows the GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA) to be maintained although its competences are redefined, and grants the Parliament a right of scrutiny on programmes in the context of a Galileo Interinstitutional Panel (GIP), created solely for these programmes. The Transport Council is expected to validate this agreement on Monday 7 April, with general guidelines on the rules of procedure. The Parliament will take a stance on this compromise the next day, in industry committee, before tackling the subject during first reading in plenary, probably during May.
Although the compromise only concerns the role of the supervisory authority, the role of the Parliament and comitology questions, the agreement reached finally allows this first European satellite radio-navigation programme to be brought out of deadlock. Governance as well as the procedure for awarding implementation contracts for Galileo remain unchanged (see EUROPE 9555), as does the public nature of EGNOS and Galileo. The agreement does, however, reconcile the positions of members states and Parliament on the supervisory authority and on the role of Parliament. Voting at first reading in January, the EP industry committee had taken a stance in favour of abolishing the authority which, according to MEPs, had become pointless after the dissolution of the public-private partnership responsible for deploying the programme. Parliament, which has power of co-decision for the European budget (which will now be financing Galileo), and which considers the programme as “the” EU priority project, has also called for greater participation in decision-making on the project itself (going as far as to request a post of observer). The compromise found on Thursday adapts the tasks of the supervisory authority to the current situation. Instead of being responsible for assisting the Commission in implementing the programmes, the GSA will have limited tasks. It will only be responsible for tasks relating to the safety of EGNOS and Galileo programmes (security accreditation, certificates, etc.), the marketing of the programme's applications and tasks that will be delegated to it by the Commission. The European Commission remains the only entity responsible for the management of the programme, while the European Space Agency (ESA) is the project manager.
The GIP, an EU institutional novelty, will in turn institutionalise the exchange of information between the Parliament, Council and Commission on the subject of Galileo and EGNOS, thus responding to the Parliament's second request. The panel will, however, have solely a consultative nature. It will bring together the representatives of the three European institutions (representative of the Commission, a delegation from Parliament and a delegation from Council) according to a pre-established timetable (in principle, meetings will be held 4 times a year).
The agreement has still to be confirmed by the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) which is to meet on Friday 4 April and should resolve several technical questions. The text will then be submitted to the approval of the Transport Council which meets in Luxembourg on Monday 7 April. The next day, on 8 April, the EP industry committee is also expected to approve the text without making any changes to it, before the final vote in Parliament during the plenary session in May. Although the agreement, once adopted, definitively settles the question of the structure of the Galileo programme, other questions, such as the seat of the GSA, will be raised in the near future. Eleven countries claim the privilege of hosting it (see EUROPE 9082) and none of them has withdrawn its candidature. This subject has so far not been discussed by the Council either. It would also be necessary to establish who exactly will exploit the EGNOS system - the precursor of Galileo that is to be operational in 2009. Like Galileo, EGNOS was to be exploited by a public-private consortium. EGNOS, which has now become public, will be either under the direct responsibility of the national civil aviation authorities or included in the new European Single Sky air traffic control programme. Whatever the decision, European diplomats do not conceal their satisfaction at seeing Galileo possibly coming out of deadlock (as well as EGNOS), affirming that the Transport Council will have no problem in endorsing the agreement reached on Thursday, although the text is not yet perfect. Expenditure by France, which is the largest contributor within the ESA, already exceeds €700 million for EGNOS alone (financed by the Community budget and ESA). (A.By.)