EU monies 'should fund Galileo'
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The European Commission will set out proposals to get the Galileo satellite navigation system back on track.
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European nations should pay 10  billion euros ($12.7 billion dollars) a year to Africa to help  it stop migrants seeking a better life flooding northwards into  Europe, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Saturday.
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Esa agrees to fund work on its ExoMars mission despite not having final approval from European governments.
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By JAN SLIVA LUXEMBOURG - As European Union ministers consider how to get the problem-plagued Galileo satellite navigation system into orbit, one man who has been there had some simple advice - do it fast, or the Chinese will steal the show.
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The European Union will help rebuild conflict-ravaged Somalia, but the cost is not clear, the EU's foreign policy chief said Saturday.
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Europe gives handout to boost competitiveness The European Union this week announced plans to pump â¬9bn into research on information and communications technologies.â¦
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GPS service will get full public funding under a proposal by the European Commission.
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A contract is signed that will lead to the building of the first four spacecraft in Europe's multi-billion-euro satellite-navigation network.
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EU countries disagree on how to fund  the Galileo satellite navigation system in the latest sign of  disarray over the project since companies charged with building  it balked at the cost, EU sources said on Thursday.
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The European Union's vision of building a hi-tech economy is under threat, according to a European Commission report.
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(InfoWorld) - Satellite navigation boxes using the GPS (global positioning system) are no longer the preserve of luxury car owners in Europe. Now you see them in the humblest vehicles on the Continent's highways. That's part of the reason why the European Commission Wednesday proposed taking on the entire â¬3.4 billion ($4.7 billion) cost of creatingÂ Galileo, Europe's answer to GPS, which is based in the U.S. "Do consumers really want this product? To answer that you must ask why consumers like GPS so much," said transport commissioner Jacques Barrot at a press conference Wednesday. "Consumers are answering the question by buying more and more GPSes," he said. "Galileo will make money, and with the E.U. as its owner, it will generate income for the E.U. budget." Barrot's confidence wasn't shared earlier this year byÂ the companies picked to share the cost and benefitsÂ of building the 30-strong constellation of satellites. Unsure of the costs and unconvinced of Galileo's eventual commercial potential, theÂ companies dragged their feetÂ to a point in June where the Commission abandoned the partnership with the private sector. Under the original plan, public money was supposed to pay for the first four satellites and then the private consortium of companies building the satellites were to pay for two-thirds of the 26 remaining satellites. This amounted to a private sector cost of â¬2.4 billion. The companies -- AENA, Alcatel-Lucent, EADS, Finmeccanica, Hispasat, Inmarsat, TeleOp, and Thales -- were to recoup their investment costs by then operating the satellites and collecting fees once they were in operation. Barrot said Wednesday that the Commission wants the â¬2.4 billion to be paid for out of European Union funds. The E.U. has already committed â¬1 billion to the project. He said that he initially wanted the 27 member states of the E.U. to fill the funding gap through payments directly to the European Space Agency (ESA). But as 10 countries in the E.U. aren't members of the ESA this was dismissed, leaving the E.U. budget as the only possibility for ensuring that the project is financed. With the E.U. as the sole owner of Galileo, it will still need companies from a variety of industries to build the system's infrastructure, Barrot said. Astrium (EADS group) and Thales Alenia Space (Thales and Finmeccanica groups) approached the ESA for some of this work recently, the commissioner said. "Galileo is extremely important for the strategic autonomy of Europe. We can't let this opportunity to manage the know-how in this advanced technology pass," Barrot said. Transportation ministers of the E.U. member states will meet in Luxembourg on Oct. 2 to debate the Commission's proposal. Countries with most to gain from the project include France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. They are believed to support the Commission. However, others including the U.K. and the Netherlands, remain to be convinced that there is a real need for a European GPS. Separately, U.S. president George W. Bush said in a statement issued by the U.S. mission to the E.U. Wednesday, that he will stop the GPS signal from being interrupted or degraded by military purposes. One of the main justifications for launching Galileo was that GPS is ultimately at the mercy of the U.S. Department of Defense, and could be jammed for strategic reasons, potentially endangering private users' lives. Galileo is intended to be purely for civilian use. However, the U.S. recently has taken steps to assure GPS users that they can count on the system. "President George W. Bush has accepted a recommendation to end procurement of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites that have the capability to intentionally degrade the accuracy of civil signals," the White House press secretary said in a statement Tuesday. Although the U.S. stopped the intentional degradation of GPS satellite signals in May 2000, this new action will result in the removal of "Selective Availability" capabilities, thereby eliminating a source of uncertainty in GPS performance that has been of concern to civil GPS users worldwide. This decision reflects the nation's commitment to GPS users that this free global utility can be counted on to support peaceful civil activities around the world, the statement said.
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Santander Central Hispano's Â£8.6bn ($15.3bn) bid for UK lender Abbey will help create a single regional financial market, the European Union's Mario Monti says.
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A new strategy for funding technology research in the European Union calls for the E.U. to pool its vast resources with those from private industry and individual member states in a public-private partnership.
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We're being left behind, people If Europe wants to be at the forefront of a global "knowledge-based economy", it needs to seriously up its spending on R&amp;D, according to a report published yesterday.â¦
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European ministers conceded failure  on Friday in their search for private funding for the  struggling Galileo satellite navigation system and said they  would have to cough up more cash from public coffers.
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The UK says the private sector should still share the risk and the cost of developing Europe's satellite-navigation system, Galileo.
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As European Union ministers consider how to get the problem-plagued Galileo satellite navigation system into orbit, one man who has been there had some simple advice &#151; do it fast, or the Chinese will steal the show.