Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200
- 219)
WEDNESDAY 27 OCTOBER 2004
MR DAVID
JAMIESON MP, MR
PHIL CAREY
AND MR
PAUL JOHNSTON
Q200 Mr Donohoe: Why the need for
both, if they are going to complement each other? Why do we not,
instead of having all this resource set up as though we are reinventing
the wheel, go and help the Americans improve their system?
The Committee suspended from 5.30pm to
5.40pm for a division in the House
Mr Jamieson: Why have the two
systems? Essentially, Galileo is a civil system for civil uses,
GPS has civil uses but was essentially a military system and it
was designed and is used for that and will continue to be used
for that by NATO and ourselves as part of NATO and of course the
Americans as well. The Galileo system is complementary to GPS
and part of the reason why the Americans welcome it is because
it is actually complementary and will give them better access
to some of the open access services and actually improve them.
It gives accuracy: instead of about ten metres on the open access
system, we have accuracy down to about one metre which, for certain
purposes, is going to give a much better system to use. The other
thing is that we will benefit in the United Kingdom, and to the
wider extent in the European Union, from getting some of the technology
and the industry working on this space project and the massive
amount of other industry that comes from it, the software that
is going to be developed, that we are particularly good at in
the UK. Those systems, instead of being located, as they are currently,
in America and to a much lesser extent in Russia, they are going
to be here in the European Union. So it is good for our country,
it complements the system. The other thing it has is greater integrity:
because of the larger number of satellites, we will have a much
greater integrity on the open access system.
Q201 Mr Donohoe: But you did say
it was compatible and it seems to me that it is almost as though
you are having duplication for no real purpose. If, for instance,
you were to have a partnership with the United States to look
at how you would advance the present system, so that it would
operate perhaps even more efficiently than what you explained,
then, it does seem rather a waste of public money for us to be
investing
3.2 billion in this system when there is already
one there.
Mr Jamieson: We have the best
of both worlds here: we have an interoperable system, so we can
use GPS in conjunction with Galileo, but what we also have is
a system that is more sophisticated for our use. The really important
thing is that if we, let us say, worked with the Americans in
improving the GPS to bring that up to standard, we would have
to do similar things and there would be similar costs. I presume,
if we went into a partnership with them, we would have to find
some of those costs, but we would not get the benefits then for
our own industry.
Q202 Chairman: Who pushed to make
this a PPP in the first place, Minister?
Mr Carey: I think it was advisers
to the Commission led by some UK players; certainly the UK government
was keen to pursue the PPP route, but several other Member States
were interested in getting best value from this.
Q203 Mr Donohoe: May I ask why the
US changed its position? I have talked to generals in the American
Pentagon who are totally opposed to the concept. They believe
that it will be, at some point in the future, used militarily
and as a consequence of that, they are already working on proposals
to overcome this, by using lasers to knock them out of the air
or whatever. What has changed the American's attitude to this?
Mr Jamieson: Firstly, you can
see why the Americans might take an approach, not of hostility,
but you could understand why they would have an approach where
they would have some doubts about it, because in fact, it is going
to supersede some of the work that GPS is currently doing and,
of course, the system is not entirely free to the United States,
they sell the licence for the equipment which actually receives
the GPS signal and of course their industries benefit from that.
I think their reservations would be that they would see some of
the industry developing in other parts of the world. I think that
is a huge benefit to us in the United Kingdom. I think what has
changed their view is that they are seeing the enormous determination
that there is in the European Union to make this a success. On
the basis of that what they have done is to work with us in making
sure that they are interoperable, because they are going to get
some benefits from that. I think the other thing is, now that
the assurances which have been given about military use—and
I am talking about military applications, not use by the military,
which I would define as separate—now they have got some
reassurance that it will not be able to be used by hostile third
countries against the United States is probably why they have
changed their mind.
Q204 Mr Donohoe: Who gave them these
assurances?
Mr Jamieson: This was in the negotiations
that have taken place.
Q205 Mr Donohoe: Was this in Ireland?
Mr Carey: Yes, it was signed in
Ireland.
Mr Jamieson: Yes, it was signed
in Ireland.
Q206 Chairman: So this is the European
Union offering them this guarantee that it cannot be used against
the United States by a hostile country. Is this signed in blood?
Where did this assurance come from?
Mr Jamieson: Let us be clear what
it could be used for. The current GPS system which Americans have
ownership of could be used by a hostile nation for determining
where the tanks were or troop movements; they can use GPS. The
Americans, in a war situation, would then have to block that signal
to the hostile country. What they have from us and a total determination,
I have to say, from most of the countries in the European Union,
is the desire not to use this for military applications. The sort
of military application I am talking about is not determining
where troops are or where a tank might be, but actually guiding
a missile to a pinpoint location.
Q207 Mr Donohoe: The fact is that
the Americans at this stage do not have the technology to be able
to do just exactly what you have said. That is the understanding
that we have. They do not have current technology and infrastructure
to jam systems at this point.
Mr Jamieson: My understanding
was that they had.
Mr Carey: The technology is advancing.
The essence of the agreement between the EU and the US, in which
the UK played a—
Mr Donohoe: They may have in the future,
but they do not have the current technology to be able to do that.
Q208 Chairman: We have just been
told, however, that it is very easy to jam these signals. Is that
so, or not?
Mr Jamieson: The open access system,
just like the GPS, would be open access anyway and for use of
movement of troops, not for applications but for general military
use, then if they wanted to that in a war theatre, I think they
call it, had to do it, they have to jam the signal, they have
to jam their own signal.
Q209 Mr Donohoe: We are told that
they could jam the Galileo signal, but maintain their own system.
Mr Jamieson: Yes.
Q210 Mr Donohoe: Is that your understanding?
Mr Jamieson: But they cannot jam
the whole signal round the world, they can only jam it in narrowly
geographically focused situations. It is not cutting the whole
system off. Paul Johnston may be able to enlighten us here.
Mr Johnston: I think the crucial
feature, or one of the crucial features of the EU/US agreement
that was reached in June, was that the baseline signals for Galileo,
both the Open Service and the PRS, if it is decided to have the
PRS, would both be such that the Americans would be able to jam
both Galileo signals if they needed to locally in a conflict area
while continuing to use the GPS military code. That is the basic
operational safeguard for them.
Q211 Chairman: And that was actually
the undertaking.
Mr Johnston: That is correct and
that is precisely why we are—
Q212 Chairman: So it a very specially
focused technical undertaking that can be delivered from their
point of view because they still have a degree of control.
Mr Johnston: Yes, and that is
why we insisted with our European Union partners that those signals
had to be separate in order that the Americans would have the
certainty that they could jam in a specific area.
Q213 Chairman: Fine; and that has
been agreed.
Mr Johnston: That has been agreed
by both sides.
Q214 Chairman: And that will be part
of the specified conditions for whoever is the undertaker here.
Mr Jamieson: Absolutely and even
further than that: that will be clearly written into the purpose
that Galileo will have in the PRS systems. It will be used by
governments, but the purposes for which they can use them will
be very clear: it will not be for military applications. The only
way that could change, and who knows, there may be a change, but
if a change were to take place, that would be by the Council under
Pillar 2 and would have to have unanimity of all the 25 countries
to make a change to have military applications.
Q215 Chairman: So unlike the other
decisions which have been taken by qualified majority voting,
you are saying this one would need unanimity.
Mr Jamieson: Indeed, absolutely.
Q216 Mr Stringer: Which countries
do want to use Galileo for military purposes? You distinctly said
a majority of countries do not.
Mr Jamieson: Are you defining
the difference between military purposes and military applications?
Q217 Mr Stringer: I am trying to
understand what you said.
Mr Jamieson: Well, for military
purposes, you could have the movement of troops and tanks; just
as for any civil use like movement of buses it could be very useful
in military circumstances.
Q218 Mr Stringer: What I want to
find out, when you said a majority of countries in the EU do not
want to use this for military purposes, is which countries are
in the minority that do want to use it for military purposes.
Mr Jamieson: One of the military
applications could be guiding a missile to its target and it could
be very attractive to someone who was going to sell guided weaponry
to which they could fit this and sell it to third countries. There
has been talk that the French had some interest in this.
Q219 Mr Stringer: So the French.
Are they in a minority of one or do any other countries want to?
Mr Jamieson: I am personally not
aware of any other country which has an ambition.
Mr Johnston: The EU as a whole
has agreed in successive Transport Council decisions that this
is a civil programme. As the Minister explained, it would require
all EU Member States to change it into anything other than a civil
programme. I am not aware of other countries which see a requirement
for that; 19 of the 25 EU Member States are members of NATO, therefore
all of them use GPS as the de facto NATO standard. There
are permanent agreements between the European Union and NATO which
allow the EU to have access to NATO planning and NATO assets for
EU-led operations which will be the case, for example, with the
EU-led operation that the United Kingdom will be leading in Bosnia
where we take over from NATO in December. That will be an EU operation
supported by NATO assets, with the NATO commander working for
the European Union. So I think there is a strong, if you like,
"Atlanticist" majority in the European Union, particularly
the new Member States, but others as well, who see a very clear
distinction between the EU role and the NATO role. Indeed the
new EU treaty, which everyone has signed up to, includes, as a
British initiative, for the first time in an EU treaty, language
which says that NATO is the basis of the collective defence of
its members. So in fact the debate in the EU in those terms is
moving towards greater clarity, that NATO does collective defence
and the EU does crisis management.
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