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

The study, prepared for the European Parliament, provides an overview of Galileo development and management from the outset until today. First proposed at the end of the 1990s, the programme 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. On the contrary, today, the programme is totally financed by the EU and progresses achieved along 2011 are bringing it closer the initial operations, envisaged in 2014. Building on the analysis, some "lessons learned" for future space systems paid out of the EU budget are drawn.