HOME STRAIGHT FOR SELECTION OF GALILEO CONCESSIONARY.

The selection of a concessionary for the Galileo European satellite navigation programme entered the home straight on January 25, with the submission of final offers from the two candidate consortia, Eurely (led by Alcatel and Finmeccanica) and iNavSat (led by EADS and Thales). The future concessionary will be charged with exploiting Galileo over a period of twenty years and securing commercial revenue, estimated by a Commission study at potentially Euro 500 million by 2020. The final choice should be made on March 1. This marks the culmination of a long selection process which should have been concluded a few months ago but was delayed owing to difficulties in dividing the two candidates... and the fact that the member states waited until December 2004 before officially endorsing the launch of the programme's deployment and exploitation phases.

The two concession candidates each include a satellite manufacturer, Astrium for EADS/Thales and Alcatel for Eurely. However, the real issue is not satellite construction contracts, which will probably be shared between all European manufacturers in the sector, regardless of whether they are members of the winning consortium, but rather the securing of a strategic foothold on the satellite navigation services market. The global market is flourishing. It has grown from Euro 10 billion in 2002 to 20 billion in 2003, and is expected to be worth...