Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-05-Speech-1-158"
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"en.20050905.22.1-158"2
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".
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Galileo Programme is both very ambitious and extremely challenging in scientific and technical terms, which is why it is so costly. As well as attracting a great deal of interest, the programme has therefore also provoked a variety of opinions and reactions. On the one hand, there are those who believe that the project makes Europe more competitive compared to the rest of the world, including the United States. In most other respects we are lagging behind the latter, for example in scientific and technological fields, but Galileo is superior to its American counterpart, or in other words GPS, which was originally conceived as a military system. What is more, at a time such as this, when the European Union is competing for public support against a background of debates on the fate of the Constitutional Treaty, this is an opportunity for us to develop a project that will enable the creation of thousands of new and much-needed jobs, to say nothing of its other benefits.
On the other hand, however, I entirely understand the concerns that have been voiced over the enormous financial costs of the Galileo Programme, and the risk that this money could be wasted. It is not only members of my own group that have raised such concerns, and they are entirely legitimate, given that worrying examples of money being wasted in this way can be found in the day-to-day practices of the different Member States. It stands to reason that the European Parliament must ensure that it has opportunities and instruments for monitoring, and that it must ensure that money is spent transparently and effectively.
Questions have also been asked over whether it is appropriate to exclude the Galileo Programme from funding cuts, in view of the debates being held on across-the-board cuts to the EU budget. The Galileo Programme is currently moving out of the development and testing phase, which has been a success, and into the implementation phase. Heeding calls for savings, and imposing arbitrary cuts in order to make savings at any price, would be akin to expecting a rocket carrier that originally consisted of three stages to carry an object into space, even if you remove one of its stages. The end result will be that we are left with nothing.
One final comment; I am delighted that the bodies responsible for such matters in the Czech Republic share my views on the future of the Galileo project, namely that it should be seen in terms of a wide variety of possible civilian applications. I am also delighted that they are not only in favour of the system being built, but are also taking the relevant practical steps to implement it."@en1
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