The European Parliament yesterday agreed to provide funding for the Galileo satellite navigation project which should effectively replace the American GPS system worldwide. Galileo will offer accuracy levels three times greater than that of GPS (1m compared to 3m) and, unlike GPS, will be a civilian system, not subject to military control.

The American GPS system was created and operated by the US military. For a long time, the civilian signal was deliberately degraded under a program known as Selective Availability, meaning only the military could obtain high levels of accuracy from the system. Although Selective Availability ceased in 2000, the fact that GPS was under American military control meant that its functionality could be denied to civilians at any time during a moment of crisis.

When, back in 1999, European countries first mooted a satellite navigation system of their own, they encountered strong opposition from the US government. American pressure almost killed Galileo off completely, but cackhanded diplomacy from George W. Bush sparked anger in Europe and revived interest in the project at a critical moment.

Since then, citing national security concerns, the United States has continued to press for changes to certain aspects of the system’s technical specifications. Some believe the fact that the US earns around £5 billion per year through sales of GPS receivers may also have been a motivating factor.

Originally, the plan was that Galileo would be set up through a public-private partnership. The private consortium which was involved in developing the system backed out last year, however, leaving Europe’s politicians to decide whether to abandon the project or continue with it on a public funding basis.

The decision to go forward was made yesterday and Galileo should now be fully operational by 2013.