What should be the UK’s response to being shut out of the secure systems of the Galileo satellite constellation?
The prospect of Brexit has presented myriad difficulties, including what to do about the UK’s imminent exclusion from the development of EU’s satellite navigation system, Galileo.
With EU members states ruling that the UK will not be able to be involved in the development of Galileo’s secure public regulated service (PRS), an encrypted military grade signal, once it is outside the EU, Prime Minister Theresa May last month pulled the plug on the UK’s involvement in the project.
In our most recent online poll on the topic, we asked readers what they thought should be done. Should we seek a refund of the £1.2 billion Britain has invested in the project? Should we take the cost on the chin and develop a sovereign navigation system of our own? Should we press the EU to reconsider this decision in the interests of the project? Or should we negotiate access to a system operated by one of our other allies?
The poll attracted a substantial response, with 829 readers having their say, and there was a very clear preferred response, with 50 per cent of voters arguing that the government should seek a refund.
The next largest response group (22 per cent) thought the UK should accept the loss and develop an alternative. 17 per cent of respondents selected none of the above, whilst the least popular option, on just 11 per cent, was the idea that we should negotiate shared use of another system.
The poll also attracted a high number of comments, many of which – unsurprisingly – focussed on the broader rights and wrongs of Brexit: with some seeing the Galileo situation as another example of why the UK should remain in the EU, whilst others, such as a commenter called Ekij, complained that it was a “spiteful” action by the EU and evidence of “why we are better off without them.”
The most vociferous arguments came from readers arguing that the UK should get some sort of refund, with a number suggesting that our investment in the project should be deducted from the final EU settlement bill. “If Brexit goes ahead, which I hope it does not, then we should not negotiate compensation, just deduct it from the amount that they say we owe” said Ivan Taylor.
Others argued that the UK should go its own way. “Aren’t the UK engineers the best satellite builders in the entire world? Who is actually making the hardware. We could pull out then charge them double for our superior engineered work?” said Michael.
This suggestion was promptly shot down by Michael Breslin who pointed out that a large portion of the UK’s world class space industry is actually owned by Airbus, which is of course headquartered in the EU.
Send a man up & remove the bits that are British.
Claim IP & charge for its use
You do not appear to have an option to select the “Carl Bilt Suggestion”
Yes – this option is missing from the list
Of course ‘we’ should seek a refund. If we have contributed to this system with the understanding we would have full access to its capabilities then the EU are in effect breaking the terms of the contract and so need to compensate us for the loss.
I’m not convinced that developing our own capability is needed. There is already three viable systems available to the UK: the US GPS, the Russian GLONASS and the European Galileo system. Maybe money could be better spent providing a capability that integrates data from all three systems to provide military accuracy and global coverage ? I would suggest that at some point a commercial entity will do this for smart devices, so maybe the UK could lead for once !
if you’re not in the club, you can’t expect the priveliges of membership. We can’t expect to play golf if we don’t pay the green fees.
‘We’ voted to leave and thereby broke the contract with the EU.
It’s ALL Cameron’s fault for the hospital pass , so don’t blame Tezza – she was given the poison chalice and the Govt. has to implement what ‘ the people’ ( or just over half of them ) think they voted for.
Why do we deserve a refund? There are many other projects we pledged to support, e.g. ESA, for which the EU will no longer get our contribution of 13% to the EU Budget as well as the legal initiatives we started and the EU has now in Law.
If the Opposition has a clue about this- where are they?
If we add in the additional £1.3bn that British Industry will now have to divvy up to get our chemicals through REACh, there’s not a lot left of the “£360 million” that we were promised by the Brexiteers.
We should knock this nonsense on the head and repeal and retract Article 50.
We did pay the fees, and will continue to pay fees. They are not kicking us out for not paying, they are doing so because they don’t accept “third country” being part of their vital military infrastructure.
The EU is well on the way to becoming a European super state (then subsequently falling apart, as happens every time someone this is tried). It should be considered a foreign country and not a friendly one; certainly not one the UK can relay on in the same way it relies on the 5 eyes group.
Sandy – we didn’t leave this project, they kicked us out, we have paid our dues and I would suggest that the UK would be happy to continue supporting the Galileo project technically and financially as long as we got the full access we paid up for.
This is a perfect example of the stubborn, intransigence of the ‘closed shop’ EU.
So why did ‘they’ not listen to us when the entire Biscuit farce started: the Times today reminds us who (Cameron) and why (to settle the bast**ds in his own Party, nothing to do with the national Interests whatsoever: even if ‘we are aLL IN THIS TOGETHER) started this outrage!
unfortunately entirely correct … this was never about the mass general interest, and all about self-serving political toadies
(I voted remain and hope we still can) Who: the UK people when given the opportunity Why: Because of the way the EU is run, …isn’t this a prime example? The EU leaders had the opportunity to discuss some reforms to David Cameron and they pretty much turned him down flat, because they didn’t think we would vote leave. Sadly UK voters called their bluff. Comments made by EU, (i.e. Mr. Junckers) in the days leading up to the vote did not help either. This is another example of how the fall out continues… (p.s I like the “Biscuit” term 🙂 )
Yes Mike, Cameron decided to placate his vociferous right wing than put the country first. Then Corbyn sat on his hands prior to the referendum to as to save face from his militant left wing. It is high time we had some
Consilitory politics in the country for the not so noisy majority middle order.
Another ripple effect from Brexit, yes Britains voted for it, but on matters of this magnitude, there must be a super majority say 60%?
I fear the EU ceases to be Europe w/o Britain and at the end of the day, will Britain really be more secure, I think Not
Hear hear !
or (let’s be really radical) 50+% of the eligible voting population …. (don’t assume that non-voting is a tacit approval for either Remain or Brexit)
The real answer is simple, forget the Brexit madness and re-join (and lead) this vital programme along with a raft of other essential initiatives that we stand to lose out on. Thank you Mr Cameron / Mrs May!
Not only should we get a full refund , but add an amount for an alternative. These details and others should have been sorted before the EU get their hands on £39B
Inform The EU authorities that the “CBA” (Contract Breaker Algorithm) will be initiated, rendering all UK developed systems inoperable. This might provide more leverage for UK investment payback and give a more improved and favourable Brexit deal to UK as a whole!!
There seems to be some confusion – particularly in mainland Europe – between ‘Europe’ and the ‘European union’. We participated in a number of projects with European countries before we joined the EU and I see no reason why that could not continue in the future. However, the Galileo saga continues the somewhat playground-style reaction of the EU to Britain’s departure and confirms why many people wanted to leave in the first place. If we are forced out of Galileo then we should seek a refund of our investment and develop our own system or seek access to another. We should bear in mind that we currently provide a significant fraction of the EU’s military force which the Galileo episode suggests is no longer wanted. Surprising, but there you are!
The European Space Agency is indeed a separate treaty organisation from the EU. We are independently members. The problem is that Galileo was funded via the EU rather than directly from ESA members. The UK was actually the country that insisted on a clause to block third-party access. At the time was still not out of the question that Russia could join as a member. Even now, should Ukraine join, there might be questions about commercial and military secrets leaking to Russia. The solution is of course, for the other members of the project agree to let the UK back in by exception. This is the sort of thing that a transition period might handle.
Of course, staying in the EU would be less costly and less damaging to our sovereignty in these kinds of matters.
We should seek a refund AND develop our own alternative. We have a world class space industry in the country and it is growing. Why should we keep depending on others to do what we are perfectly capable of doing ourselves.
Europe continues to demonstrate why we are better off without them.
Just because we don’t want to be governed by Europe doesn’t mean we can’t continue to cooperate on joint projects that are in all our interests.
If Europe is going to be spiteful then they can give us our money back and we’ll take it somewhere else.
It seems odd that the EU want us to continue to co-operate militarily with them post Brexit and yet they take the ludicrous line of excluding us on Galileo.
It’s the politics of the school yard. Someone is taking their ball home (although strictly speaking, its not all theirs to take).
unfortunately it is us who are leaving the “field of play” on the basis of some much vaunted “greener grass” elsewhere. “They” are still there & playing
The EU isn’t a military or security organisation but NATO is, so why cannot we be trusted as part of the core European nations. I think this is more a political/economic gambit by some EU members especially France to grab hi tech industry and substantial income from UK industries.
Trying to get any money out of them is a waste of time which will just cost more money.
The UK should make its own system, exploiting the experience it has gained from this one.
Cameron is to blame for this ill-thought out action. In no way were the potential and possible consequences spelt out before a vote was taken. Given the narrow margin to leave, perhaps knowing the likely consequence would have made people stop and think before voting to support Brexit whatever the consequences. “Little Englanders” springs to mind as the best way of covering the leave vote, last remnants of the Empire. And a fat lot of good that did us, in the long run…good captive audience for our goods and a source of cheap minerals et al. Cotton for the Northern mills seems a good example. both as a steady, cheap supply and what happens when that is cut off. Sad, visiting those rows of still, lonely-looking ranks of cotton spinning machines up North. Cannot, cannot understand what is wrong with Europe that people should wish to leave-lived there for a while and admire their way of life-different of course, but very enjoyable. Perhaps we just don’t get out enough-living amongst ordinary people creates a different, more open state of mind
Actually John Major is to blame for signing the Maastricht agreement. The people of the UK voted to join a trading group but the politicians, here and in Europe, wanted to turn it into a political union – a bigger pond to be big fish in.
This was followed by Tony Blair’s free entry policy which destabilised society to such an extent that people wanted to leave the whole set up.
Now we must deal with the fallout from both these faulty policies.
This has a close parallel to the ERTMS system for rail operations which seems to be another very expensive project with little evidence to date of a real commercial payback ever being achieved. UK applications and enthusiasm for it have been limited.
We should suck it up. We voted for it apparently. There isn’t going to be money for an alternative so we can forget having the military security we apparently want.
Confronted with yet another downside of Brexit (are there any upsides?), the obvious answer is to retract Article 50 and remain.
Actually the sooner we get out the better. The UK’s negotiating position will be much stronger from outside than in.
You made your bed now lie in it.
Just a small correction here. The demise of the UK (and now European) textile manufacturing ‘industry’ (and it was!) was the result of the sheer unadulterated greed of the retail consortia.
Adding, like all retailers, profit, but little or no value: and making their income out of their suppliers and staff (because they have lost the ability to make such out of their customers?
Whilst on the theme of textiles: we were all taught at school, that the American Civil war was fought over the evils of slavery…in fact the real reason was textiles. The South grew cotton cheaply (because of their access to slave labour) and sent such North to New England where it was processed and the real ‘value-added’ achieved, The Southern States realised the lunacy of this and, having plenty of money, land and labour available approached the UK textile machinery manufacturers (at that time the sole world suppliers) to import and install their own facilities to both grow and process cotton in the same place. The Federal Government in Washington realised that this would decimate the wealth development and profits of the North and said NO! They were concerned that the balance of economic power on the East Coast of the USA would tip South: Richmond Va and Atlanta would have become more important than New York and Washington. Now there’s a thought.
Now that is an analysis that I had not seen before…. I will have to look at this more closely!
Us leavers (mostly) do not want to leave Europe, we just do not approve of the way the EU is run. The behaviour of the EU inner sanctum over Brexit demonstrates why change is not possible whilst they are ‘in charge’.
We had an industry in 1975, where has that gone?
We had a fishing industry, we built ships etc, etc.
Now we are are a net importer from the EU.
Galileo is yet another example of EU lack of commitment to a real EU Commonweath.
A lot of confusion here between what is the EU and what is Europe, that’s a bit like confusing the UK with the Tory party ! I love my country (and Europe) but I certainly don’t have any affection for the UK Government …
Plus we are ‘only’ talking about a global positioning capability here. We appear to have managed quite nicely to invade and destroy Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, etc. without Galileo. I’m convinced we will still have the capability to invade and destroy in the future so I would suggest the security issues are a bit of hyperbole.
Offset what we have paid against the divorce bill, develop our own and then pay the divorce bill once installed. Any intellectual property that we have contributed should be removed from Galileo.
This is jumping the gun a bit! We have not left the EU yet, a deal might be stuck or better the dumb ass$%d decision to leave is reversed.
Why not simply tell them they cannot use any of the intellectual property that was developed by the UK and now underpins the system. Thus rendering the entire Galileo project non-functional until they develop a completely new system without using any UK developed IP. Or alternatively charge them a large fee for using it… Let’s say £100B per annum for the entire life of the system. This would of course be enforced by present European Law… LOL
I’m pretty sure that you’d have buy a white cat and convert a hollowed out volcano first.
Mr. Junker, we have been expecting you………………Mwhahhh etc.
As an Aussie, Brexit like any government election, you don’t know what you get policy wise, as all the election pork-barrelling is a lot of double speak(Lies) and you end up with very little of what you actually voted for.
The UK as a country should ask for total recompense of funding and engineers involved from the *Name of the program* now ‘Galileo’ conception from the EU plus a [30% to 10% normal commercial rates for this type of venture] @ compounded interest, PLUS, every engineering people along with a full set of drawings and bought back to the UK. Then with the qualified engineers in hand, set about programming such guidance format using ALL available systems, US – Russian – Galileo etc and create an international version that all the rest of the world can license or put it up as a NATO/US alliance or some other scenario that would benefit the UK economy as a major leader in the field of excellence. For God’s Sake, STOP your Barnyard Antics and sort things out fully before all cooperation with Europe(Not the European Union) goes out the window as NO-ONE wins!
If Brexit goes ahead, which I hope it does not, then we should not negotiate compensation, just deduct it from the amount that they say we owe, and not only should we deduct the appropriate amount for our direct input, but also a significant amount for the intellectual expertise undoubtably added by our industries.
Erm. Aren’t the UK engineers the best satellite builders in the entire world? Who is actually making the hardware. We could pull out then charge them double for our superior engineered work? In this case it is definitely a seller’s market.
Wasn’t there a satellite in the 80s (sent to pass through the tail of an asteroid called Galileo ) that the then PM -the grocer’s daughter- suggested sounded like ‘frying-bacon!’ Add this to Biscuit and we almost have a Continental Breakfast!
I think you mean the Giotto spacecraft, which flew through the tail of Halley’s Comet.
Forget about launching a home-grown satellite constellation; a more affordable option would be to develop a multi-channel receiver that can pick up public (non-encrypted) signals from all 4 systems (US, Russia, China and Europe) and with some clever software cancel out much of the “wobble” deliberately introduced into the transmitted positioning data. Result: something close to the encrypted, military grade accuracy. This approach could actually be MORE robust a in number of conflict scenarios involving, say hostile jamming against or denial of service by one or more of the operators
On the finances, rather than getting dragged into what is likely to be a protracted contract dispute UK should deduct the £1.2bn directly from our net contribution to the EU, which seems likely to continue for some years yet
apologies to Ivan Taylor, who already made that point …
Trevor writes obviously from a position of deep knowledge of this particular aspect to Engineering.
Using the power of an opponent -real or imaginary- to their disadvantage (as the VC did in the 80s) is surely the ultimate intellectual skill. I believe I have opined before: “we have to out-think, not out -gun our adversaries (real or imaginary)”. And frankly, looking at the abilities of those who purport to be our superiors, in the present crop of farcical efforts in which they are engaged …..I see little to suggest they think anything through at all: let alone the National Interest.
We do indeed have a world class space industry but a large portion of it is headquartered in the EU – namely Airbus Defence & Space who, of course are already heavily involved in Galileo. Also we would have to contract a foreign country to provide launch facilities for a British
independent GPS satellite, the one capability that we do not possess.
We haven’t had an independent launch facility since the early 70s (BLACK ARROW). The EU doesn’t have a launch facility, But ESA does – slight difference. I don’t know what the financial arrangements are for an ESA launch but it won’t be free and certainly isn’t limited to EU members. The UK has used various facilities in the past and there is no reason why that won’t continue, so I really don’t see that this is an issue.
>excluding the UK
Guess who decided to vote themselves off the island.
Or how about a quantum accelerometer that calculates position by dead-reckoning, without the need to receive any external signal: as reported on BBC Radio 4 ‘Inside Science’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0001fw1 To quote the late great Ian Dury “there ain’t half some clever b******s”
Any military technology is no use if someone else can switch it off when you need it. Strategic planning and manufacturing requires resilience and should include the fact that adversaries and cooperating states can and do change over time. As someone once said, a week is a long time in politics.
I am old enough to recall Suez -I was riding my bike around the lanes of Kent (and revising for O levels! -GCSE to younger readers) meeting dozens of sand-coloured trucks, jeeps, etc: and Parliament was being told by the PM that we were not planning or doing anything! Perhaps my cynicism of all in authority started then! Once we had started Uncle Sam pulled the plug so quickly, it might almost have been planned in advance: so they that ‘they’ not ‘we’ could call the future shots (literally) in the Mid East! I did attend a lecture once (Shrivenham?) where the speaker opined that had the Suez invasion (sorry, police action) been allowed to proceed, peace within the entire area would have been ensured for 50 years. [And that would never do?]