Today, Maria da Graça Carvalho, rapporteur for the opinion on Implementation and exploitation of European satellite navigation systems, spoke during the exchange of views of the budget comittee with regard to the Commission legislative proposal. See complete intervention.
The Galileo and EGNOS programmes have been designed to establish a European Global Navigation system. The two programmes represent a single navigation system. The fully deployed system will be composed of 30 satellites and associated ground infrastructure. It will be responsible for such things as power grid synchronization, electronic trading, effective road, sea and air traffic management and so on. It is estimated that already 6-7% of Europe's GDP, or €800 billion, relies on satellite navigation applications. Most of the funds spent on the Galileo and EGNOS programmes flow directly into the European economy.