Europe Advances GPS Counterpart, Galileo.

Even as Congress has denied funding for modernization of the Global Positioning System, European organizations leading the drive to create an independent Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) called Galileo are accelerating their efforts to define the system architecture management structure, and institutional relationships.

An October 6 meeting of the European Union's Council of Transport Ministers took up two issues: establishing a legal framework for the Galileo Steering Committee--headed by the European Commission (EC) and European Space Agency (ESA)--and approving a formal directive to begin negotiations with Russia and the United States. According to sources involved in the program, the actions had originally been scheduled for December, but EU political leaders are anxious to move Galileo ahead as quickly as possible.

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