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2 Galileo: Europe's great leap
outward By Jose Carlos
Matias
When the European Union and China
agreed to cooperate to develop the Galileo
Satellite System in 2003, the US reacted with
strong skepticism, since Washington was against
the sharing of sensitive dual-use technology (with
civilian and military applications) with China.
In the past, the United States had tried
unsuccessfully to impede the EU's ability to set
up Galileo, which is an alternative to the
US-established Global
Positioning System (GPS). At the time, US analysts
questioned why Brussels was spending money (3.6
billion euros, now the equivalent of nearly US$5
billion) to duplicate an existing system that was
available "for free", and why it was eager to
accept Chinese participation in the program.
Four years later, the EU-China "maturing
partnership" has evolved toward a more complex
network of common and contradictory interests, as
the trans-Atlantic links have slowly recovered
since the US-led intervention in Iraq.
Moreover, China has begun to develop its
own global navigation satellite system (GNSS) -
the Beidou-2. At the same time, the Galileo
deployment has suffered a crisis due to
disagreements among the industries that were
awarded the concession to build and deploy the
first four satellites of the Galileo system.
Public funding may save Galileo, but the
best-case scenario for a successful program is for
the actors involved to pursue a more realistic
approach. In addition to China's announcement of
upgrading Beidou to mass-market applications,
Russia has also decided to complete its own GNSS,
called Glonass.
In the face of these
developments, what will be the impact of
developing the Chinese GNSS for EU-China
cooperation and to the commercial feasibility of
Galileo?
The EU and the European Space
Agency (ESA) made the decision to create their own
GNSS because of a combination of factors that
imply political, economic, technological, social
and military gains. Politically, Galileo has been
portrayed as a guarantee of independence and
autonomy from the US-established GPS.
This
perspective became more evident in the aftermath
of the Kosovo war when European forces were fully
dependent on the US system, a limitation that has
worried the actors involved in the development of
a European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP),
especially the member states that stand for the
modernization of autonomous EU military
capabilities.
Since the beginning of the
definition phase of Galileo, European Community
(EC) papers have noted the importance of Galileo
for Europe's Rapid Reaction Force, EU peacekeeping
missions and, separately, the realm of activities
related to the "Petersburg Tasks", a set of
security and military tasks in the field of
peacekeeping and stability operations agreed in
1992 among the EU members.
It is
noteworthy to underscore the fact that the
defense-related justifications for Galileo have
been played down by the EU institutions, which
instead have highlighted the economic benefits of
a GNSS. On behalf of the EC, the consultancy
company PricewaterhouseCoopers drew up a business
plan for the Galileo project, which was submitted
to the European Council of Ministers.
By
involving private-sector actors, Galileo "should
generate revenues for the operator rising from
some 66 [million euros] in 2010 to over 500
[million euros] in 2020", the report said.
Definitively, Galileo would create a "virtuous
cycle" through a spin-off effect in several
sectors of the European economy. Moreover, Galileo
has been portrayed as an instrument to create
thousands of jobs and as a way to avoid the brain
drain in the realm of aerospace, aeronautics and
satellite industries.
Undoubtedly, Galileo
signifies independence and autonomy from the US
and the ownership of cutting-edge technology.
Galileo has been regarded as a key instrument not
only in the process of modernizing the Common
Foreign and Security Policy and ESDP, but also
part of the ongoing integration of the EU's
defense industries.
The US
response US opposition to the European GNSS
can be understood in two different, but
complementary, perspectives: economic reasons (in
terms of market share of GNSS services) and
security and military concerns.
In 2001,
then-US deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz
addressed the central problem from Washington's
perspective by expressing, in a letter to members
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the
concern that Galileo could interfere with US
military operations guided by GPS. Wolfowitz also
expressed the willingness of the Pentagon to take
part in the development of Galileo, justifying
this position with the fact that NATO enjoyed the
benefits of GPS.
After Washington's
"diplomatic offensive", analysts thought the birth
of Galileo was in danger. Yet in March 2002, there
was a breakthrough, and Galileo saw the green
light during the Barcelona Summit of Heads of
State and Government. After failing to put Galileo
on the back burner, Washington started to
emphasize concerns over the interference of
signals between the two GNSSs.
This
problem was solved in June 2004 with an
interoperability agreement between the US and the
EU. Yet even before, in October 2003, another
problem came into sight when Brussels and Beijing
signed the cooperation agreement on the
development of Galileo.
The China
dimension On September 18, 2003, the EC
announced that China was to join the Galileo
undertaking and finance it as a preferential
external partner. According to the agreement,
China would contribute at least 230 million euros.
From Washington's point of view, this partnership
posed several dangers to the trans-Atlantic
relationship and especially to the security and
economic interests of the United States.
Basically, by involving China in the
development of Galileo, the EU was indirectly
helping the modernization of the People's
Liberation Army (PLA), an act regarded as
unacceptable by many analysts and politicians in
Washington.
Indeed, it would be almost
impossible to prevent the transfer of technology
to the Chinese. This has been a very sensitive
issue at a time when the US is increasingly
preoccupied with the
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