The Galileo programme: management and financial lessons learned for future space systems paid out of the EU budget

Galileo is the first large space programme and system managed and owned by the European Union (EU). Its strategic value rests on the political, operational, industrial and technological independence that it will guarantee in the field of global navigation and positioning. Although Galileo represents a priority for the European space policy, more than ten years on the declaration of its feasibility, the programme is still far from completion. Galileo has experienced a slow and problematic development due to concurrent and different factors, among which the failure of the envisaged public-private partnership (PPP) approach to financing, the ever increasing costs, the diverging opinions among EU Member States (MS) and within EU institutions, governance problems, and complex international negotiations still ongoing. Given the new shared competence of the EU in space matters established by the Treaty of Lisbon, which paves the way for new EU space activities, the purpose of the study is first to examine specific and characterizing issues related to the management and financing of the Galileo programme, then to draw lessons learnt for future space systems funded out of the budget of the EU.

Study requested by the European Parliament's Subcommittee on Security and Defence.