Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-12-Speech-1-112"
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"en.20030512.9.1-112"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, may there one day be a satellite passing overhead that bears your name. Now that would be a nice contribution from the Commission. The discussions surrounding the financing of Galileo are starting – within the European Space Agency, at any rate – to resemble a bad soap opera. At every turn, another Member State emerges from the wings to block this agreement. Now it seems that Spain is the culprit once more. This is hard to understand, since, after all, Galileo is important to maritime safety. The
environmental disaster is evidently not a sufficiently convincing argument for Mr Aznar’s government. It is time that our Parliament blew the whistle to bring an end to this little game.
It is a very great commitment, and it is perhaps precisely for that reason that some countries are under pressure to shelve this strategic project. That is why I am one of the co-signatories to this resolution. Galileo is of strategic importance to the Union, because – whatever happens – we have to keep pace with technology. We want independence when it comes to information on positioning, and we do not want a ‘brain drain’ or ‘job drain’ to the United States. The decision to proceed with Galileo was not taken lightly. After all, there are many arguments for and against it. I support the arguments in favour of Galileo. Here in this Chamber, I want to lend my support to the realisation of this network. We must not dawdle on this, however. The scenario is simple: if Galileo is not realised as soon as possible, the transport sector will delve deeper and deeper into GPS applications, and Galileo will remain unused. In the short term, therefore, Galileo has to constitute a valuable alternative to GPS for the European transport sector. This sector needs a strong signal from the Commission, the ESA and the Galileo Consortium, and quickly, otherwise future users will not put their trust in the applications; and Galileo is too expensive to remain unused.
I should just like to go on to emphasise its civilian nature. That is something that is very important to us. Only Galileo can offer users a guarantee that the plug will not be pulled when the United States once more feels compelled to take unilateral action somewhere.
Incidentally, the Commission itself, in its communication, speaks about the consequences of the war in Iraq for the energy and transport sector. We must not, therefore, lose this project; national interests must defer to the interests of the Union in this respect. In my country there is a pop song about Satellite Suzy. I hope that Satellite Suzy, too, passes overhead one day."@en1
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