Brussels, 06 Dec 2002
The Council adopted the following conclusions:
"Having regard to :
(i) previous Conclusions and Resolutions of the European Council and of relevant Council formations regarding the GALILEO programme ;
(ii) the launching of the development phase of the programme as decided by the Council on 26 March 2002 followed by the ESA Council decision on [... 2002] ;
(iii) the Commission communication on the state of progress of the Galileo programme5 presented to the European Parliament and the Council on September 2002 ;
THE COUNCIL
1. NOTES with satisfaction that the development phase of the GALILEO programme has been launched with the setting up of the GALILEO Joint Undertaking (JU) and the first meeting of the Supervisory Board on 25 November 2002;
2. REITERATES that GALILEO is a civil programme under civil control ;
3. RECALLS the need for the Joint Undertaking, in the nearest future, to
(a) be fully operational, with the Administrative Board having taken all relevant administrative and financial decisions,
(b) agree with the European Space Agency (ESA) on the modalities of their relationship,
(c) draw up the statement of work for the invitation to tender concerning the future GALILEO system operator, covering the tasks described in article 4 of the JU Statutes;
4. AGREES that the following services are included in the statement of work for the invitations to tender :
(a) an "open service" (OS), free of user charge, providing position and timing performances competitive with other GNSS systems,
(b) a "commercial service" (CS) allowing the development of professional applications with increased navigation performances and added value data,
(c) a "Safety of Life service" (SoL) targeted at safety critical users, with high level performances and including a service guarantee by the operator committing on the quality of the Signal In Space (SIS),
(d) a "public regulated service" (PRS) reserved to government-authorised users for applications requiring continuity of services,
(e) support to the Search and Rescue services of the COSPAS-SARSAT or other relevant systems ;
5. REAFFIRMS the importance of an appropriate integration of EGNOS into GALILEO ;
6. RECALLS that safety-critical navigation services used in Europe have to be subject to civil public sector regulation ;
7. REITERATES its willingness to take a final decision on the GALILEO services not later than the end of 2003;
8. REAFFIRMS its willingness to achieve a suitable agreement with the United States in the framework of the negotiations on interoperability between the GALILEO and GPS systems ;
9. AGREES that Member States and the Commission will make all necessary efforts so as to ensure an optimal allocation of frequencies for GALILEO at the World Radio-communication Conference (WRC) in June and July 2003. This implies that, for the purpose of GALILEO :
(a) EU policies on frequencies are fully co-ordinated and take the definition of GALILEO services and their frequency plan into account,
(b) close relations are maintained with, and the widest possible support is ensured from, the main non-EU players, be they multilateral organisations like CEPT, ITU, EUROCONTROL, ICAO, IMO or third countries and world regions ;
10. UNDERLINES the importance of security issues for the development of the GALILEO system, throughout all its phases, and AGREES in consequence that a single and fully operational security authority is to be set up by the Council ;
11. WELCOMES the Commission's intention to present by the end of 2002 a proposal for setting up the operational GALILEO Security Authority. Until such Authority is fully operational, the existing Security Board shall continue its activities under the co-chairmanship of the Commission and the Presidency. The relevant political and security aspects will be addressed by the competent bodies established by the Treaty on the European Union;
12. INVITES the Commission to
(a) finalise the negotiations held with the United States of America on the basis of the negotiating directives agreed on in October 1999 and in close consultation with the Special Committee, with a view to achieving interoperability at user level and compatibility at system level, of both GPS and GALILEO,
(b) continue the negotiations with the Russian Federation on the basis of the negotiating directives agreed on in October 1999 and in close consultation with the Special Committee, with the view to ensuring adequate interoperability and collaboration between GALILEO and GLONASS and co-operation on the planning of future developments of GNSS for civil use,
(c) present, taking due account of security considerations, a proposal for negotiating directives with the People's Republic of China,
(d) continue and expand, after due consideration of opinions of Member States, contacts with other third countries with the view to demonstrating GALILEO's potential and prepare for possible future negotiations for further co-operation."
Environment and Sustainable Development - Council Conclusions
The Council adopted the following conclusions on the second review of its strategy on the integration of environment and sustainable development into transport policy.
"Having regard to
· the Treaty establishing the European Union;
· the conclusions of the European Council of June 15/16 June 2001 in Goeteborg concerning the strategy for sustainable development, and in particular its paragraph 29 on ìensuring sustainable transportî;
· the Council Resolution of 5 April 2001 on the integration of environment and sustainable development into transport policy;
· the conclusions of the Council (Environment) of 17 October 2002 on the Union's sustainable development strategy;
· the Plan of Implementation adopted at the Johannesburg World Summit on sustainable development, and in particular paragraph 20 on sustainable transport;
The COUNCIL,
1. REAFFIRMS the significant first step in the integration process, which was taken with the strategy on the integration of environment and sustainable development into the transport policy, which was adopted by the Council on 6 October 1999 on request from the European Council in Cardiff and Vienna, as well as the Council Resolution of 5 April 2001, which confirmed and further developed the strategy.
2. BEARS in mind the different geographical, demographic, environmental and socio-economic characteristics of the Member States, and the consequent need for differentiated measures corresponding to the sustainable mobility and transport needs of the individual Member States.
3. AGREES that a modern transport system is vital for the economic development in the Community, that it must be sustainable from an environmental, an economic and a social viewpoint, and that it must also enhance the global competitiveness of the European Union.
4. RECALLS that the Goeteborg European Council stated that action is needed to bring about a significant decoupling of transport growth and GDP growth.
5. AGREES that integration of environmental aspects and progress towards a sustainable transport system can provide new business opportunities, bring social progress, stimulate economic growth and create new jobs. In this context, the Council is looking forward to the presentation of the action plan for promoting environmental technologies announced in the report from the Commission on environmental technology for sustainable development.
6. UNDERLINES the importance of continuing the efforts to reduce emissions from the transport sector with a view to meeting the obligations defined in the recent ratification of the Kyoto protocol by the European Community and its Member States; and welcomes in this perspective the adoption of the 6th Environmental Action Programme.
7. NOTES the recommendations in the Commission communication on impact assessment based on the conclusions from the Lisbon Summit. In particular, the Council notes the decision of the Commission to launch impact assessment as a tool to improve the quality and coherence of the policy development process. The Council stresses the importance of analysing new policy proposals for their environmental impact and the ability of the Community to reduce harmful environmental impacts from the transport sector, and furthermore to adopt all necessary measures to deal effectively with the prevention of accidents in maritime transport, in particular of environmentally dangerous substances.
The Council expects to see, as of 2003, the Commission start attaching impact assessments to all substantial regulatory proposals; in this context states its intention, in principle, not to consider such proposals without proportionate impact assessments, covering inter alia economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainable development in line with the Conclusions of the Goeteborg European Council, unless in case of extreme urgency or in other exceptional circumstances.
8. NOTES the overall conclusion from the TERM 2001 report that despite the reductions in emissions and the improvement of urban air quality through cleaner technologies and fuels, ìtransport is becoming less and not more environmentally sustainable, and integration efforts have to be doubled.î
9. AGREES that although progress has been made to reduce the environmental impact of transport in Member States and at Community level, significant progress still has to be made to reach the objectives set out in the 1999 Council strategy. The Council considers that there are three areas where there is a particular need for further action.
a. Emissions of greenhouse gases, notably CO2, in particular from road transport, shipping, and aviation, taking due account of developments in relevant global specialised organisations like IMO and ICAO.
b. Emissions of harmful substances from all transport modes, with special attention to the emissions of ultra-fine particulate matter and emissions from unregulated pollutants.
c. Noise originating from road, rail and air transport.
10. REITERATES its invitation to applicant countries to follow the integration principle as it is being developed in the Community when formulating national and local strategies during the pre-accession period.
11. RECOGNISES the important work undertaken by the Commissionís Joint Expert Group on Transport and Environment and calls on the Commission to continue to use this group and its work.
12. INVITES the Commission and Member States to further develop the list of measures set out in the 1999 Strategy and the 2001 Resolution on the integration of environment and sustainable development into transport policy.
12a. WELCOMES that the Commission is actively pursuing its work on
- the development of a Community framework for fair and efficient pricing of infrastructure covering all modes of transport in a transparent manner
- the examination of possible use of indicative long-term and intermediate environmental targets for the transport sector on EU-level
- measures to promote modal shift to more environmentally friendly modes of transport and to promote the environmental performance of all modes of transport
- the preparation of a proposal aiming at safeguarding a continuous operation and development of TERM.
13. NOTES that it was agreed in 1999 to implement the operational part of the Strategy by the end of 2004; AGREES to continue to review the strategy regularly on the basis of reports from the Commission."