Britain will not be allowed to continue work on developing the European Union’s Galileo satellite navigation system – a rival to the US-owned GPS – after Brexit, according to the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier.
“There is a way for the UK to be included in a partnership about Galileo as a user of [services] including the PRS,” Barnier told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Vienna on June 19, adding the issue should be addressed “in the framework of our future strategic partnership with the UK.”
According to the Reuters news agency, when Barnier was asked if that meant Britain could not take part in the project’s development, he said: “Not development. It is a unanimous decision of the 28. The facts have consequences.”
The news has upset Britain’s Brexit minister David Davis. Earlier this month he said Britain had been instrumental in developing Galileo’s technology, and that shutting it out at this stage would delay the project by up to three years and increase the bill by €1bn, reported Reuters.
“The rules as they are today… [are] a third country cannot take part in the development of the PRS signal,” Barnier told reporters, referring to the Galileo Public Regulated Service.
Britain was among the 28 member European Union member states to approve the rules, he added.
