-Caveat Lector- from - http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49778,00.html?tw=wn20020117
Europe GPS Plan Shelved By Steve Kettmann 2:00 a.m. Jan. 17, 2002 PST BERLIN -- Exasperated European officials say U.S. pressure appears to have torpedoed a $3 billion project to build a European version of the U.S. global positioning system, which uses signals from orbiting satellites to track geographical position within 36 meters. The proposed system, dubbed Galileo, was intended to give Europeans more autonomy, both industrially and militarily. That's no small concern, since the United States can selectively block access - http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47739,00.html - to GPS, as it has during the military campaign in Afghanistan. Also, European plans to develop a rapid-reaction military force will become much more credible with their own GPS in military operations. But U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz sent a letter to all 15 European Union defense ministers last month, urging them to influence their governments not to proceed with Galileo. That deferred any decision on the project, and now looks to have brought its momentum to a halt. "Galileo is almost dead," Gilles Gantelet, spokesman for Loyola de Palacio, the European commissioner in charge of the project, said. "We expect that we could have the decision by March at the latest. If there is no decision in March, then we could consider Galileo ... dead." Wolfowitz's rationale, according to Gantelet and published reports, was that the United States Defense Department, which funds and operates GPS, plans to upgrade the system's capabilities and use more frequencies for signals. The European system, Wolfowitz reportedly cautioned, could interfere with that. But Gantelet questions that claim. He said the Europeans have communicated to the U.S. government plans to avoid any technical problems with operating two systems. "We consider all the technical aspects to have already been dealt with or easy to overcome," he said. "We think it's mainly now a political decision." But it's also possible that U.S. pressure helps give European governments cover so they can shy away from such an expensive project. That was the view Turkey's ambassador to NATO expressed on Monday. "I know there are some problems with (Galileo)," said Onur Ãymen, whose country is a member of NATO, but not the EU. "We can perhaps not expect to have everything at once." "The important thing is to have an awareness that if the European Union wants to have its contributions to European defense, they have to spend money for that. I can't say that the Europeans are reluctant in improving their militaries, but whether their budgets are enough for that, it's an open question." The politics of the project -- and the bitterness likely to be generated by its demise -- are not without their sense of drama. President Jacques Chirac of France was quoted in the International Herald Tribune as saying that if Europe did not pursue Galileo and other space projects, the failure "would lead inevitably to a vassal status, first scientific and technical and then industrial and economic." Timing is a major issue for Galileo. The Europeans believe the project can earn significantly more than it will cost, but only if Galileo moves forward in the near term. They say it must be up and running by 2008 to turn a profit. "One advantage of Galileo is that it will be better than the current GPS system, and it will arrive on the market before the new generation of American system," said Gantelet. "But if the delay is too long, there will be no interest from consumers in using it." Most frustrating for the Europeans is that, in essence, the Americans don't trust them with so powerful a tool. The Europeans argue that it makes sense for the Western community to have more than one system, just in case. "It's important for Europe to develop its system, and important for all the Western countries to develop another system that is not a competitor to GPS, but could be alongside it," said Gantelet. "With tough times that are starting, you don't know that there will be no terrorist attacks against the GPS. It's more reliable to have two systems." That argument has not, so far, swayed the thinking at the Pentagon. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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