TRANSPORT COUNCIL : COUNCIL AND PARLIAMENT NEGOTIATE FUNDING FOR GALILEO APPLICATIONS.

Three outstanding questions are preventing the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers from reaching an agreement on the future funding and governance of the European satellite navigation systems, Galileo and EGNOS. Beyond the question of the overall budget that will be allocated to these programmes in 2014-2020 (depending on an agreement on the EU's multiannual budget), if a report presented to transport ministers on 20 December, is to be believed, the two institutions are once more attempting to agree on funding for the development of applications that can arise from these programmes.

Parliament says that applications are the only way of demonstrating to citizens the advantages they could gain from the Galileo and EGNOS systems: it has therefore proposed devoting a part of the allocated funding to these programmes in 2014-2020 for the development of applications. The European Commission was not expecting this: the 7.9 billion it was requesting for these programmes from 2014 onwards was to finance the completion of the deployment phase for Galileo, as well as the use of EGNOS. The Council more or less agrees.

However for MEPs, the question of applications is important - and they are not letting it go.

Discussions within the competent working group at the Council have shown that several member states are in favour of funding the development of applications, but also that a certain number of member states are opposed to it...