*EPF316 06/30/2004
Transcript: Powell Hails U.S.-EU Agreement on GPS-Galileo Cooperation
(Powell at signing June 26 in Shannon, Ireland, with de Palacio, Cowen) (1380)

Secretary of State Colin Powell hailed the new U.S.-EU agreement on Global Positioning System (GPS)-Galileo cooperation as a "remarkable achievement" at a signing ceremony June 26 in Shannon, Ireland, during the U.S.-EU Summit.

The U.S. GPS system consists of satellites broadcasting signals that can be converted into precise positioning and timing information anywhere in the world. In 1998 the European Union decided to develop its own satellite navigation system, which it called "Galileo."

The new agreement, Powell said, "manages to balance the competition that is inherent in the commercial dimension of satellite navigational technology with the cooperation necessary for the security dimension."

Powell also noted that combined GPS-Galileo capabilities will open up "major opportunities for scientific research and creative engineering, enabling new applications, applications that we haven't even begun to think of yet, and also for the development of new technologies."

European Commission Vice President Loyola de Palacio and Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen participated in the signing ceremony as well.

Following is the State Department transcript:

(begin transcript)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
June 29, 2004

REMARKS

SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN L. POWELL
AT THE SIGNING OF THE GALILEO TREATY

June 26, 2004
Dromoland Castle
Shannon, Ireland

FOREIGN MINISTER COWEN: Good morning, everyone. Secretary of State, Commissioner. I'm delighted to be here with the U.S. Secretary of State Powell and Vice President de Palacio to sign a cooperation agreement between the European and U.S. satellite navigation systems.

The Galileo Program is a joint initiative of the European Commission and the European Space Agency, and it's the first global satellite positioning and navigation system designed specifically for civilian use worldwide. It has been in development in the European Union since 1999, and in March of 2002 the European Council decided to complete its development and to prepare for its commercial operation. Today's agreement will allow rapid movement towards that goal. The Commission has estimated that Galileo will create more than 150,000 jobs in Europe alone. This is therefore a project of huge economic and commercial significance and one which will set technological standards globally over the next decade.

One of the major messages of this summit has been the crucial nature of our investment relationship and the need to deepen our cooperation in areas of advanced technology. I can think of no better example of this than the Galileo project and the agreement that we are signing today. I would like invite Vice President de Palacio and Secretary Powell to say a few words.

EU VICE PRESIDENT DE PALACIO: Thank you, President. The Galileo GPS agreement is good news for satellite navigation worldwide. And I must say that this historic agreement, with this historic agreement we are paving the way for the future of global satellite navigation, and I want to thank all the team who have been working from the U.S. side and from the EU side for the magnificent work they have done which has facilitated this agreement which at the beginning was not the easiest one to be achieved. But nevertheless, we managed, and this is the most important question.

I must say that with this agreement, we are going to set the rules of the game for the GPS and Galileo for the coming decades, both systems being fully interoperable, and they will set the world standards in the market through the use of the same open signal. This will allow all users to use in a complementary way both systems with the same receiver. The benefits of satellite navigation will grow significantly. The minister has said already the figures for business. But we must say that we will double the number of navigation satellites to provide a most efficient service to users worldwide.

This agreement was a fruitful exercise in transatlantic relations, and today we are confirming our commitment to develop a key technology which will bring significant opportunities for all our common future, and so, once again, building together U.S.-EU, EU-U.S., building for the future worldwide.

Thank you.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you very much, Brian and Loyola.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to be at this year's historic U.S.-EU summit, the first since the EU's enlargement to 25 members. On behalf of President Bush, I again congratulate Europe on this major accomplishment with the completion of this current phase of expansion.

As you know, this also marks the 50th anniversary of formal U.S.-EU relations. That relationship has been characterized by shared principles, common interests and close cooperation. Our tradition of cooperation continues today as I join European Commission Vice President Loyola de Palacio and Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen as signatories to the U.S.-EU agreement on GPS-Galileo cooperation.

I, too, would like to thank everyone on both sides of the Atlantic who worked so hard to conclude this agreement. As the Vice President said a moment ago, it's been difficult work, but we never gave it up. We stuck with it, and now we see the results of that hard labor.

And particularly it was Vice President de Palacio's vision that set Galileo firmly on its path to becoming a reality. She understood the importance of protecting allied security interests and ensuring that Galileo was compatible with the U.S. Global Positioning System. Her efforts as well as those of the presidency and all the member states have guaranteed a mutually beneficial relationship between our respective satellite navigation services.

Thanks to this agreement we will enhance the common benefits of these new technologies. The agreement manages to balance the competition that is inherent in the commercial dimension of satellite navigational technology with the cooperation necessary for the security dimension. This agreement also establishes a framework for ongoing U.S.-EU cooperation in the field of satellite navigation. GPS-Galileo capabilities will open up major opportunities for scientific research and creative engineering, enabling new applications, applications that we haven't even begun to think of yet, and also for the development of new technologies. And the agreement paves the way for the two systems to eventually broadcast a common civil signal, which will double the number, as you heard a moment ago, of satellites working within a compatible framework. This, in turn, will ensure the safety and availability of satellite navigation technology for transportation and recreational users worldwide.

I am one of those recreational users. I also have a security interest in GPS technology. I have a GPS system in my Volvo, and I also have used GPS systems in war. In the Gulf War some years ago, in the early '90s, one of my retired general colleagues went on television not knowing what the latest advances in technology were, and said that he was terrified that the American army would go out into the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq and immediately become lost because there were no signposts, no mountains to look at, no places by which one could steer, only to discover that nobody got lost because we had gone out and purchased GPS systems for all of our tanks, and so every soldier on the battlefield knew exactly where he or she was at any particular point in time.

We have seen such growth in this technology in the intervening years so that it has become so cheap that anybody can have it, it has become so reliable that it can be used increasingly for scientific, commercial, recreational, every imaginable purpose. We use it for agriculture, we use it to know when to put our crops in the ground now because we can precisely know where to put crops in a particular point of a farm or some cultivated area.

We are just now beginning to scratch the capabilities of this technology, and that's why it was so important that the U.S. and the European Union come together and find a compatible way of moving forward. We have found that way. I congratulate Loyola, I congratulate Brian and through Brian all the member states of the European Union for this remarkable achievement.

Thank you.

(end transcript)

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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