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Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of the deployment and commercial operating phases of the European programme of satellite radionavigation

(COM(2004) 477 final — 2004/0156 (COD))

(2005/C 221/06)

On 16 November 2004, the Council decided to consult the European Economic and Social Committee, under Article 156 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the abovementioned proposal.

The Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 17 January 2005. The rapporteur was Mr Rannocchiari.

At its 414th plenary session, held on 9 and 10 February 2005 (meeting of 9 February) the European Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 134 votes with 3 abstentions:

1.   Introduction

2.   Current state of play and anticipated developments

3.   The European Commission proposal

4.   General comments

5.   Specific comments

6.   Conclusions

Brussels, 9 February 2005.

The President

of the European Economic and Social Committee

Anne-Marie SIGMUND

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(1)OJ C 311 17/11/2001 p. 19.

(2)  Galileo Joint Undertaking, set up under Article 171 of the EC Treaty by Council Regulation EC 876/2002 of 21 May 2002. It ensures the implementation of the development phase of the Galileo Programme and provides for the management of the deployment and operative phases. Its headquarters are in Brussels. Its founding members are the European Community, represented by the Commission, and the European Space Agency.

(3)OJ C 48, 21/02/2002 p. 42

(4)  EESC opinion on the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council - Progress report on the GALILEO research programme as at the beginning of 2004. OJ C 302 of 7 December 2004

(5)  Council Regulation on the establishment of structures for the management of the European satellite radionavigation programmes (OJ L 246, of 20 July 2004)

(6)  See OJ L 246, of 20 July 2004

(7)  US GPS: United States Global Positioning System, operated by the military

(8)  GLONASS: GLOBAL NAVIGATION SATELLITE SYSTEM.

(9)  EGNOS: European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service: system based on the correction of the GPS signal via a network of ground stations and geostationary stations. It was launched in 1996 and operated as Galileo's precursor. EGNOS is to be integrated with the latter under the terms of the joint concession scheme..

(10)  See Concession for the deployment and operation phases of the Galileo programme 2003/S 200-179789, published on 17 October 2003

(11)  EURELY: Consortium founded by ALCATEL, FINMECCANICA and VINCI

(12)  INAVSAT : founded by EADS Space, Inmarsat Ventures and the Thales Group.

(13)  COM(2004) 636 final adopted 6 October 2004

(14)  IPR: intellectual property rights.

(15)  COSPAS (Russian acronym for ‘Cosmicheskaya Sistyema Poiska Avariynich Sudov,’ or Satellite search system for vessels -SARSAT: Search And Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking: an international satellite search and rescue system with humanitarian objectives. Between 1982 and 2003 the system was responsible for rescuing more than 15,000 people worldwide.

(16)  See EESC opinion on the Proposal for a Council Regulation on the establishment of the Galileo Joint Undertaking, Point 3.5. OJ C 48 of 21 February 2002

(17)  See COM(2004) 693 of 25/10/04, a Communication from the Commission that recommends the establishment of the agency in 2005, and proposes that it be entrusted with protecting individuals in matters pertaining to the processing of personal data.

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