Israel Commits To Europe’s Galileo Project

The European Union reached an agreement for Israel to participate in building the Galileo global navigation system to rival the U.S.-based Global Positioning System (GPS). Financial terms were not disclosed.

The Galileo project is scheduled to become commercially operational in 2008. The pact between Israel and the EU will go before the EU Transport Council this June for formal approval by the EU member states.

Galileo will provide Europe with its own global navigation satellite system. The intent is to offer an accurate global positioning service under civilian control that would increase the reliability and availability of navigation and positioning services worldwide, according to the European Space Agency. The system would be inter-operable with U.S.- based GPS and Russian-operated GLONASS, the world’s two existing global satellite navigation systems.