Britain plans to set up rival satellite system to EU’s Galileo

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Europe

Britain is considering setting up a satellite navigation system to rival the EU’s Galileo project amid a row over attempts to restrict Britain’s access to sensitive security information after Brexit, the Financial Times reported.

The Galileo satellite program is the EU’s 10-billion-euro (12.2 billion US dollars) program to develop a rival to the US Global Positioning System (GPS). The complete 30-satellite Galileo system, including 24 operational ones and six active spares, is expected by 2020.

Britain’s Business Secretary Greg Clark was reported to take legal advice on reclaiming the 1.4 billion euros (1.71 billion US dollars) it has invested in Galileo since the project started in 2003.

The European Commission has started to exclude Britain and its companies from sensitive future work on Galileo ahead of the country’s exit from the EU in a year’s time, a move Clark said threatened security collaboration.

“We have made it clear we do not accept the Commission’s position on Galileo, which could seriously damage mutually beneficial collaboration on security and defense matters,” he said in an emailed statement.

Clark said that if Britain was excluded, it could result in years of delays and higher costs for the project “stretching into the billions.”

He said the UK had "a lot of the capability" that would be needed for a satellite navigation system, and also promised to ensure that Britain’s space industry was not deprived of future opportunities.

Britain’s space sector is growing four times faster than the rest of the UK economy and the country has a seven percent share of the global space industry.

(Top image: File photo)

Source(s): Reuters