EU and US Move Toward Agreement over Galileo Following Brussels Negotiating Round

Washington, 25 Feb 2004

The United States and the European Commission, joined by the European Union member states, held a successful round of negotiations in Brussels on 24-25 February 2004. The delegations built upon progress made in The Hague and in Washington and were able to reach agreement on most of the overall principles of GPS/Galileo cooperation, including,

• Adoption of a common baseline signal structure for their respective open services;
• Confirmation of a suitable baseline signal structure for the Galileo Public Regulated Service (PRS);
• A process allowing optimization, either jointly or individually, of the baseline signal structures in order to improve performances further;
• Confirmation of interoperable time and geodesy standards to facilitate the joint use of GPS and Galileo;
• Non-discrimination in trade in satellite navigation goods and services;
• Commitment to preserve national security capabilities;
• Agreement not to restrict use of or access to respective open services by end-users;
• Agreement to jointly finalize associated documents after which the agreement will be presented for signature.

The delegations will continue to work diligently to resolve the few remaining outstanding issues which concern primarily some legal and procedural aspects.

The EU Delegation was led by Heinz Hilbrecht, and the US team was led by Ralph Braibanti.

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Item source: http://www.eurunion.org/news/press/2004/ 20040030.htm