GALILEO : DE VEYRAC: 'ASTRIUM SHOULD HAVE A SHARE'.

It did not take long: the day after the European Commission's decision to award the contract for a second batch of Galileo satellites to a consortium headed by prime contractor OHB System AG in Bremen, Germany, the first angry reaction has come.

MEP Christine de Veyrac (EPP, France) has released a press statement announcing her intention to write "without delay" to the Commissioner in charge of the dossier, Antonio Tajani, "to show the anger his decision has caused. Astrium should have a share". De Veyrac intends to remind the Italian commissioner that his country finances a large portion of European space policy, and therefore "it is not normal that there should be no compensation in return".

On 2 February, the Commission announced that OHB had won the contract for the construction of eight new Galileo satellites, worth around 250 million, ousting Astrium (a subsidiary of EADS) once again: OHB also built the first series of...