Joint company will see through GALILEO's development phase
The European Commission has proposed the creation of a joint company to ensure smooth the management of GALILEO's development phase and the mobilisation of public and private funding. Initial members of the company will be the European Community, represented by the Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA), to be joined later by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and private enterprises. The company will be created in order to complete successfully the development phase of GALILEO, the European navigation satellite, which is tabled to take place between 2001 and 2005. The company will primarily be responsible for watching over the programme's development and research and technological development activities, preparing for the following phases of the programme (deployment, operation exploitation) and bringing together public and private finance. The development phase will be financed by 1.1 billion euro provided by the EU and ESA and 200 million euro from the private sector. Representatives from the main interested industries signed a joint declaration of intention in March this year.