Brussels, 12 Oct 2006
The Council took note of the information provided by the Commission on the progress on the ongoing negotiations for the Galileo concession contract, led by the Galileo Joint Undertaking.
The Council expressed the wish to be regularly informed on the state of play of the negotiation of the concession contract and specifically as regards the sharing of risks between the public and private sector as well as of their financial implications.
The negotiations with the eight member consortium started following submission of a joint tender on 20 June and 21 October 2005. An initial round of negotiations resulted on 17 February 2006 in an agreement on the principles to be followed during the remainder of the procedure.
An agreement on the concession contract is supposed to be reached by the end of this year and the Commission will inform the Council and the European Parliament of the outcome of the negotiations and will provide them with a summary demonstrating the sharing of risks between the private and public sector and the distribution of the main rights and obligations between both sectors.