EU HAVE BEEN WARNED: Britain ready to QUIT Brussels satellite project as Brexit row grows
BRITAIN has threatened to walk away from the European Union’s €10 billion Galileo satellite project after Brussels said the UK’s involvement would have to be “readjusted” to reflect its outsider status after Brexit.
ESA show progress of EU’s Galileo satellite navigation
Business Secretary Greg Clark had said that he wanted Britain to remain involved in “all aspects” of the €10 billion (£8.5 billion) programme, which is aimed at creating a European encrypted navigation system to rival the USA’s GPS.
But the European Commission wrote to ministers in January to warn that it would be “inappropriate” to divulge sensitive information about its plans for the post-Brexit period to a departing member state.
British ministers were reported to be furious at the move, which could freeze UK companies out of lucrative work on a project to which Britain has made a major contribution.
Now, Mr Clark is calling for an immediate freeze of the procurement process by Monday “to allow UK industry to compete fairly in the contract tendering exercises underway.”
Mr Clark sent a letter to his EU counterparts warning that if British companies were left out in the cold, it would walk away from the entire project.
He wrote: “Galileo would no longer meet our basic security requirements and would deprive us of the ability to compete on a fair basis.
“Regrettably, without continued access to security-related information, the UK could be obliged to end its participation.”
Bidders were set to make their final offers for the ground control of Galileo next week, with a second bid for backup satellites worth hundreds of millions of euros would occur afterwards.
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson was reported to have “hit the roof” at the prospect of the British armed forces being excluded from use of the powerful system.
Speaking during a visit to Estonia, Mr Williamson said the Commission’s approach was “deeply disappointing”.
Mr Williamson said: “What has been notable as I have spoken to so many defence ministers across Europe is that they think the EU Commission’s view is wrong and actually not only will be detrimental to Britain but will also be highly detrimental to European security.”
“So I very much hope the EU Commission will take the opportunity to see sense, recalibrate its position and not play politics on something that is so vitally important – which is European defence and security."
The UK has funded 12 percent of Galileo’s annual budget, since 2003. But that contribution is now in jeopardy. It also paints a worrying picture that the EU looks set to refuse to share security information with the UK post-Brexit.
In March, Mr Clark said that British involvement in Galileo should continue as part of the “deep and special partnership” which Theresa May is hoping to negotiate with the EU.
“The UK has a world-leading space sector that has contributed a significant amount of specialist expertise to the Galileo programme,” he said.
“The Government has been clear that we want our critical role in this important project, which will help strengthen European security, to continue as we develop our deep and special partnership with the EU.
“This could only happen with complete UK involvement in all aspects of Galileo, including the key secure elements which the UK has unique specialisms in and have helped to design and implement.”
Government officials believe that the French could be behind the push to get Britain out of the project.
An official told the FT that if things were not changed within weeks, Airbus - which is in charge of ground control from Portsmouth - would have to move out of the UK, with France a possible destination.