EU Galileo satellites to be fully operational 2011

FRANKFURT, March 2 (Reuters) The European Union's answer to the U.S. Global Positioning System is on track to start around 2011, the European Space Agency said in response to industry associations' fears it could be delayed to 2014.

An ESA spokeswoman said the Galileo system, which has just one test satellite in orbit almost 30 years after the United States launched its first GPS satellite, would have all 30 planned satellites in operation in about four years' time.

German IT and telecoms industry association Bitkom said this week it feared the start of the 3.4 billion-euro (.5 billion) Galileo project would be delayed until 2014, saying competing national interests were hindering the project's start.

Europe wants its own system to reduce its dependence on the United States, especially as GPS is a military-run programme whose signals can be unilaterally switched off.

When Galileo was first mooted near the end of the 1990s, it was envisaged going into operation in 2008.

The ESA spokeswoman said it was now expected that a basic system of four satellites, which would not yet cover the whole of the earth, would likely be in place in 2008 or 2009.

Telecoms, navigation and road-toll companies, among others, are eagerly awaiting the start of Galileo, which they expect to unleash a market worth tens of billions of euros.

Bitkom called on the German government, which currently holds the EU presidency, to act. It issued a statement in conjunction with the Federation of German Industries (BDI) and the German telematics association TelematicsPro.

''Certain member states keep slowing down the project because of their individual interests. The government must work on winning them over,'' Bitkom Vice-President Joerg Menno Harms said in the statement.

Bitkom, wary of upsetting other European nations, declined to give concrete examples of how individual countries were holding back the project.

An industry source mentioned the setting up of a quality-control centre in Spain, in addition to operational control centres already being built in Germany and Italy, as an example of unnecessary work.

''The basic problem is whether Europe is ready to build that sort of system and to be more pro-European than pro-national,'' another industry source said, declining to be named.

REUTERS SP ND1650