Council adopts regulation on the implementation and exploitation of the European satellite navigation systems

Galileo satellite

Brussels, 5 December 2013 Council of the European Union Ref 17376/13 (OR. en) PRESSE 536

Today's Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council adopted a new financial and governance framework for the European satellite navigation systems (EGNOS and Galileo) for 2014-2020 (26/13; statements: 16097/13 ADD1 + ADD2).

The seven-year financial envelope for the EU's satellite navigation programmes is set at EUR 7 billion in current prices, in accordance with the next multi-annual financial framework (MFF).

The new regulation provides inter alia for the following:

– The activities to be financed under the regulation concern the completion of the deployment phase of Galileo (that is, the establishment of space and ground-based infrastructures) and the exploitation of Galileo and EGNOS.

– The services to be provided are defined.

– A new governance framework establishes a strict division of tasks between the Commission, the European GNSS Agency and the European Space Agency.

– Public procurement rules aim to promote the widest participation possible throughout the Union and ensure fair competition conditions.

– One of the objectives is the development of applications based on the satellite navigation systems, such as chipsets and receivers, with a view to maximising the socio-economic benefits of the programmes. A maximum amount of EUR 100 million in constant 2011 prices will be made available under the budget of the programmes to this end. It is, however, underscored that such financing must not jeopardise the deployment and operation of the satellite navigation infrastructure.

– The Commission will be responsible for the security of the programmes and will have the power to lay down high-level objectives in this respect. It will also be the Commission's task to establish the technical specifications and other measures to implement the security objectives, but these more specific requirements must be endorsed by the member states' experts to be adopted. In establishing those objectives and requirements, the Commission must make sure that the general level of security is not lowered compared to the existing standards.

– It will be possible to extend EGNOS coverage to other regions of the world, in particular candidate countries, non-EU countries belonging to the Single European Sky and countries of the European Neighbourhood Policy.

EGNOS, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, enhances the accuracy of existing civilian GPS services, with a geographical area centred on Europe and the possibility of extension to other regions of the world in the future. It is already operational and available for use with both an open service and a safety-of-life service for aviation.

Galileo will be an independent European global satellite-based navigation system, providing five services:

– an open service (OS), free for the user and providing signals for timing and positioning

– a commercial service (CS) for applications for professional or commercial use requiring higher performance than offered by the open service

– a public regulated service (PRS) using strong, encrypted signals and restricted to government-authorised users

– a service that contributes to the international search and rescue service (S&R) system by detecting emergency signals

– a contribution to integrity-monitoring services, aimed at users of safety-of-life (SoL) applications. The SoL function, which will be provided in cooperation with other satellite navigation systems such as the American GPS, allows users for whom safety is essential, for instance airlines or maritime companies, to be alerted when certain margins of accuracy are not met.

The first three services (OS, PRS and S&R) are due to be available by 2014-2015. The system will be fully operational when all satellites are in place . This should be achieved by 2019 or 2020.