The European satellite project ‘Galileo’ is experiencing severe difficulties.
Internal squabbling, a lack of finance and scheduling setbacks are all being blamed for the troubles. The programme was originally intended to be operational in 2008 but that has been put back to around 2014.
Galileo is the EU’s proposed alternative to the Pentagon-controlled Global Positioning System (GPS), and hopes to exploit a growing worldwide demand for satellite communications that supporters of the program estimate could be worth as much as EUR 300 billion by the year 2020. It will consist of 30 satellites orbiting the earth.
Galileo has been set up as a commercial venture, and two thirds of the bill was originally intended to come from private money. The EU is now proposing to alter that and move to public financing for the EUR 8+ billion project, in an attempt to get the project up and running again.
The EC said: "The Commission calls on the EU Member States to take the necessary decisions in terms of policy, finance and program management to enable the project to be completed as soon as possible and to meet the needs of satellite navigation market users."
The UK government forked out EUR 31m last year to help bolster the program, claiming the system would be used for ‘more accurate in-car navigation and new systems for the emergency services to locate missing or injured people.’
However, many fear the technology will allow for road charging schemes. Once operational, the system, along with technology on the ground, would in theory allow the tracking of all vehicles – their journeys, destinations and speeds – if adopted by the government.