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BREXIT NEWS
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ANOTHER WORLD EXCLUSIVE FROM FACTS4EU.ORG
THE EU'S SATNAV PROJECT
© EU Commission
You do NOT have to be a rocket scientist
to find this series interesting, shocking, but also entertaining!
This Easter Sunday we are presenting the complete series of reports. This disastrous EU project has great lessons for us as we look at Brexit overall. We hope you enjoy it.
Best regards, the Brexit Facts4EU.Org team, Easter Sunday 31 March 2018, 06.10am
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LOST IN SPACE : THE EU'S SATNAV PROJECT
© EU Commission
EU TRIES TO BAN UK FROM SATNAV PROGRAMME
In recent days, the EU’s satellite navigation project called Galileo has come into public focus, with various mentions including by the Prime Minister herself. Yesterday the CEO of Airbus weighed in, saying that the UK must not be excluded from the Galileo programme and that matters of national security were at stake.
This has arisen because of the EU Commission telling the UK in January that it will be frozen out of the programme, causing outrage in the UK’s healthy space sector.
The Commission appears to take no account of the fact that the UK has contributed over 12% of the total costs of the programme so far, and has provided a substantial amount of the design and technical expertise.
OBSERVATIONS
In the coming series of articles we will tell you something about Galileo, the EU’s rival system to the USA’s GPS system which we all use today.
We will show you how this project is massively late and massively over-budget. We will also use this as a classic example of the incompetence of the EU in managing anything at all.
To see a superb example of how incompetent the EU is
Just look to the stars with us and we’ll show you
One thing the EU has been very good at, however, is spending huge amounts of British taxpayers’ money. And on that score the EU’s SatNav project has been very effective.
You may well find that part interesting, if nothing else.
Next article: Part 2 - Space – another frontier too far for Mrs May
[ Sources: EU Commission | EU Legal Docs | European Space Agency | Dozens of other official sources as well as information from scientists working on the project ]
Journalists and politicians can contact us for the full list of links, as usual.
07.10am, 30 Mar 2018
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READERS' COMMENTS
Please send us your comments and we will publish them here. You can of course use a pseudonym if you prefer, and it's always nice to know roughly where you're writing from. Please always state the headline of the article you're commenting on.Name: Not4EU, UK Date/Time: 01 Apr 2018, 08.31am
Message: A happy & peaceful Easter to you all. An excellent series. Like many I was aware of elements of this topic, which were bad enough. So thank you for collating it in one place, which has certainly added to my knowledge and opened the eyes of those who only now are discovering the reality of what the EU is and means. As for our pitiful, weak & spineless remainer-led Govt., they may have been erasing the red lines but the people who voted to leave have not. Their 'red lines' were already at the very limits of compromise for many leavers, with others 'missing'. We will not forget. May has destroyed her party by simply not doing what was promised and was asked.
Name: Chris, Devizes, UK Date/Time: 30 Mar 2018, 11.29am
Message: The irony is that the Galileo program depends on American companies for a lot of its development. For example, Raytheon has an R&D centre in Harlow which does a lot of work on Galileo.
Name: Sydney Ashurst, UK Date/Time: 30 Mar 2018, 09.15am
Message: Galileo, an example of cooperating with the EU and then finding you have been taken over, lock stock and barrel. In Civil Aviation the UK cooperated generously in creating the European Aviation Safety Agency, since taken over by the Brussels Commission. We cannot be a full member, on leaving the EU.
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LOST IN SPACE : THE EU'S SATNAV PROJECT
PT 2: SPACE – ANOTHER FRONTIER
TOO FAR FOR MRS MAY
© EU Commission
THE POLITICS OF SPACE
On Monday Mrs May told the Commons:
“The UK does have a world-leading space sector and that has contributed a significant amount of specialist expertise to the Galileo programme. So we believe it is not just a question of what is in the UK's interests for us to continue to be able to participate as we have done in that programme. We think it's actually in the interests of the European Union as well because of the expertise the United Kingdom can provide.”
The UK government Business Secretary Greg Clark added:
“The UK has a world-leading space sector that has contributed a significant amount of specialist expertise to the Galileo programme. The Government has been clear that we want a critical role in this important project, which will help strengthen European security to continue as we develop our deep and special partnership with the EU. This can only happen with complete UK involvement in all aspects of Galileo, including the key secure elements which the UK has unique specialisms in and have helped to design and implement.”
THIS STARTED MONTHS AGO... BUT YOU WEREN'T TOLD
The EU has been making noises about excluding the UK from this project - to which the UK has already committed a huge amount of money - for some time.
Back in January the EU Commission wrote to the UK government about no longer being able to share Galileo information:
“If the Commission shared this information with the UK (which will become a third country) it would irretrievably compromise the integrity of certain elements of these systems for many years after the withdrawal of the UK.”
On 24 January 2018, the EU Commission announced:
“Today the Commission adopted a decision to transfer the back-up site of the Galileo Security Monitoring Centre from the United Kingdom to Spain. The Galileo Security Monitoring Centre (GSMC) is a technical infrastructure which plays a key role in ensuring the security of the EU's satellite navigation programme Galileo, including its Public Regulated Service (PRS). As a consequence of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU, the GSMC's back-up site needs to be relocated.”
The EU Commissioner for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (space expert Elżbieta Bieńkowska) announced:
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“Europe's satellite navigation system Galileo has already been delivering high quality services for over a year now.”
“With today's decision the Commission is taking the necessary operational steps to ensure business continuity and preserve the security of the Galileo system.”
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Six countries were allowed to bid for the new location (not the UK of course) and the Commission chose Spain as the only candidate it put forward to the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) Programmes Committee. The committee endorsed the only candidate.
OBSERVATIONS
Despite the UK still being a full member of the EU, and despite it continuing to pay a large part of the EU’s costs, and despite having contributed billions to this space project in particular and continuing to fund it, the EU is moving the Galileo Security Monitoring Centre to Spain. The UK was not asked to bid for the location because no British territory would be considered. This is in flagrant breach of the treaties.
It is clear from our research that British companies are no longer welcome in consortia when they are putting together bids for new parts of the Galileo project, because the consortia fear that this will put them at a disadvantage in winning contracts.
The really bizarre thing in all of this is that the UK has a major part of the technical expertise that is still required. In denying itself this expertise, the EU will be left with technical gaps it will struggle to fill, and only its incompetent and bloated management structures will be relatively unaffected.
HOW TO NEGOTIATE, ROOM 1.01
When this sorry episode started, the British government should have fired off a legal letter immediately, pointing out to the Commission that it was acting in breach of treaty obligations in denying a full member of the EU (the United Kingdom) a role in an important EU project.
Regrettably, our dithering and weak Prime Minister does not do such things, preferring instead to hope that warm words will bring them round. She really has no idea how the EU elites’ minds work.
Can you imagine President Trump sitting down and taking this? Or Viktor Orban of Hungary? Or even Frau Merkel?
What is required, across the board, is far more robustness from the British side. If anyone in Whitehall has a backbone, it’s still not too late to start using it.
Next article: Part 3 - Rocketing costs, astronomically late, 47% complete. You do NOT want to miss the facts and figures!
[ Sources: Hansard | EU Commission | And confidential sources ]
Journalists and politicians can contact us for the full list of links, as usual.
07.20am, 30 Mar 2018
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LOST IN SPACE : THE EU'S SATNAV PROJECT
PART 3: ROCKETING COSTS, ASTRONOMICALLY LATE
© EU Commission
PROJECT IS STILL ONLY 47% COMPLETE
1 year and 3 months ago the EU announced its SatNav system went ‘live’ - but what’s the truth?
We read about these EU ‘successes’ every week in their press releases. Unfortunately when we investigate, the reality is somewhat different. Regrettably Galileo is another case in point.
Galileo is the EU’s SatNav system, similar to the system we all use in our phones and in our cars. A lot of your money has gone and will continue to go into this, so you might be interested to know about it.
EU Press Release : “Galileo goes live!” - Brussels, 14 Dec 2016
(Er.... well, kind of.... except for the fact you will still need GPS.)
There is of course a fully-functioning SatNav system that we all use in our phones and cars, which is an American system called GPS. The EU first discussed back in 1981 that perhaps the EU should have its own version.
It then took them another 13 years before the EU Commission proposed a project, and this then got the go-ahead from the EU Council. Below is a quick summary of the EU's project so far, and then we give a bit more detail in the next articles.
Please note: To be fair to the EU, we didn't start the clock when the EU first talked about having its own SatNav system. We started our timeline 13 years later in 1994, when the project got the official go-ahead.
OUR BREXIT FACTS4EU.ORG SUMMARY - GALILEO PROJECT
- So far the Galileo Project has taken 24 years from initiation in 1994
- This EU taxpayer-funded SatNav system is still only 47% complete
- The original deadline for completion passed 11 years ago
- The budget has rocketed to 7 times the original figure
- It’s now equivalent to half the entire annual GDP for EU member state Estonia
OBSERVATIONS
Unfortunately the story of the EU's Galileo project is the usual history of EU projects. It's way overdue, it has cost far more than it was ever supposed to, and it doesn't do what it said on the tin. Apart from that it's just dandy. Our red box summary above is only a quick précis, but we give a bit more detail in the next articles.
Incidentally, as it's Easter we'll share something with you. We know you generally don't always want all the detail we give you on each story like this.
The reason we have to go into more detail than you or we would like is because otherwise Remoaners would try to poke holes in our research. A few of them try to do that anyway, but most don't bother. They realise that we have researched in such detail into official EU and national government sources that they have nowhere to go. Any argument they might make is futile, as it won't match the facts.
This project is a fairly representative one of the EU in all its interstellar glory.
The subsequent articles go into more detail and are the result of a week of ploughing through thousands of pages of official documents from the EU, the European Space Agency and suppliers, as well as information from individuals who are actually working on the programme.
We hope we’ve distilled this work down into some highly-readable pieces for you. If you’re a mainstream journalist and would like all of our source files, please let us know here. Space. The final frontier.
Where the EU boldly spends like no man has spent before...
[ Sources: EU Commission | EU Legal Docs | European Space Agency | Dozens of other official sources as well as information from scientists working on the project ]
Journalists and politicians can contact us for the full list of links, as usual.
06.10am, 31 Mar 2018
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READERS' COMMENTS
Please send us your comments and we will publish them here. You can of course use a pseudonym if you prefer, and it's always nice to know roughly where you're writing from. Please always state the headline of the article you're commenting on.Name: Jon, Wales Date/Time: 31 Mar 2018, 1.56pm
Message: The "EU Lost In Space" series brought to us by Brexit Facts4EU is a magnificent eye-opener and I would urge readers to take some time to absorb the deeper aspects of the series, for like other articles, it exposes failures. It is detailed FACT you generally wont find elsewhere. Now I admit to being a 'space-geek', so for me this series was of great interest. My initial thoughts were of EU incompetence from a political point of view where they have this mentality of: 'it doesn't matter if things don't work, just keep bleeding taxpayers'! As noted, it is massively over-budget and completion, and there lay some of the issues. In my opinion, Facts4EU observations have it just right in a nutshell:
"Space. The final frontier. Where the EU boldly spends like no man has spent before...".
Transparency from EU elites is on another planet, but whatever one thinks about the European Union (which is not a country or state), the UK continues to be the second highest NET contributor to EVERYTHING it does, and the better our country performs, the more we have to pay it. So while the EU spends more of other peoples money (demanding more when it wants - usually called "errors"), it continues to be unaccountable to taxpayers. Is it any wonder elites enjoy their luxury EU lifestyle, huge salaries, pensions, and perks like lower taxes? But I digress. One must consider the huge amounts over four and a half decades [except one year] the UK has given to the EU. The behaviour of elites should change, for as the saying goes, 'you don't bite the hand that feeds you', yet they hurl abuse at us for deciding to exit their political union.
Name: W. Alkaway, Essex, UK Date/Time: 31 Mar 2018, 1.04pm
Message: Thank goodness the EU scientists didn't have to invent a tin opener, to see what's inside the tin that 'says it on the lid', or we'd be waiting even longer! How I laughed! They take themselves seriously, but no one else does.
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LOST IN SPACE : THE EU'S SATNAV PROJECT
PT 4: A BRIEF HISTORY OF EU TIME
© EU Commission
THE EU BRINGS NEW MEANING TO THE PHRASE ‘SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM’
Time is a relative concept, explained Albert Einstein. Never is this more true than in the case of the EU.
OUR BREXIT FACTS4EU.ORG SUMMARY - GALILEO DATES
Here are some key facts about the timings of the EU’s SatNav project, Galileo:-
- First approved by EU Council 24 years ago in 1994
- Completion dates have come and gone many times
- EU Commission announced in 2016 that the project was finally ‘live’
- In fact it won’t complete until 2020
- That will mean 26 years in the making and 13 years after the first deadline
© Facts4EU.Org 2018
Key dates :
- 1994: Council of the EU approved Commission to start SatNav project
- 1999: Studies and proposed programme completed
- 2000: Satellites to be operational by 2007
- 2003: Establishment of Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU)
- 2005: Completion put back to 2010 (3 years late)
- 2006: GJU put into liquidation, GNSS Supervisory Authority took over
- 2007: EU Commission nationalises the project - €3.4bn euros agreed by EU
- 2007: Completion now put back to 2013 (6 years late)
- 2011: First 2 satellites launched
- 2013 (4th ‘Completion’ date) : 4 out of 20 satellites launched, one has antenna problems
- 2014: 2 more satellites went into lopsided, elliptical orbit
- 2016: 14 satellites are operational in total, 16 less than planned
- 2017: 4 more satellites launched, still in test mode
- 2018: Atomic clocks start failing in some of the satellites
SO, WHAT DO THE EU ELITES SAY ABOUT THIS PROJECT?
EU Press Release : “Galileo goes live!” - Brussels, 14 Dec 2016
From 15 Dec 2016: The EU Commission proclaimed that the service was live - 9 years late, and 22 years after the EU Council first approved the project.
Unfortunately, as usual this isn't the whole story. Very regrettably we have to report that whilst 30 satellites are needed for full operation including back-ups, there are still only 14 actually operational. That's a 47% completion rate. The service is nowhere near being fully operational.
In a latest twist, on 18 January this year the EU's system suffered a 'glitch' when atomic clocks that regulate its satellite signals started failing at an alarming rate. Jan Wörner, the Director-General of the European Space Agency (ESA) which governs the Galileo project, said that some of the satellites now had fewer clocks than before and warned of the possibility of “a systematic problem”.
OBSERVATIONS
Two years ago we suggested that the story of the EU's 20+ year dalliance with space was a good indicator of the likelihood of the EU negotiating in a timely fashion with the UK.
We'd suggest that subsequent events have proved that we weren't wrong.
So far this EU satellite project has ground to a halt due to becoming bankrupt, then it was bailed out with taxpayers' money, satellites went into the wrong orbits, and now atomic clocks are failing. We're not space experts but we'd assume that atomic clocks are quite important when measuring time and space accurately.
In many ways the Galileo project is like a microcosm of the entire EU project. Give them a day and they’ll take a light-year. Similarly the UK needs to get on with things, not engage in more years of diplomatic and commercial discussions which go nowhere until time zero is reached.
We hope we’ve distilled this work down into some highly-readable pieces for you. If you’re a mainstream journalist and would like all of our source files, please let us know here. Space. The final frontier.
Where EU time is a relative concept.
Our final articles in this series will appear tomorrow, Easter Sunday. You do NOT want to miss these! They include a piece on the huge expenditure of UK taxpayers' money on this project, and the lessons to be learnt for the Brexit negotiations as a whole.
[ Sources: EU Commission | EU Legal Docs | European Space Agency | Dozens of other official sources as well as information from scientists working on the project ]
Journalists and politicians can contact us for the full list of links, as usual.
06.10am, 31 Mar 2018
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LOST IN SPACE : THE EU'S SATNAV PROJECT
PART 5: ‘It’s money Jim,
but not as we know it...’
© ESA – Pierre Carril
TO BOLDLY SPEND WHERE NO MAN
HAS SPENT SO MUCH BEFORE
In the heady days of 2000, when the Euro was in its inglorious infancy and Tony Blair was still a popular Prime Minister, the EU allocated €1.8 billion of public funds to complete a SatNav system for Europe.
This article looks at what happened to that €1.8 billion.
© Facts4EU.Org 2018
IN ADDITION TO CAPITAL COSTS FOR DEVELOPMENT, THERE'S MORE:-
- Entire lifecycle cost will be far more, with running costs in the billions
- EU has already estimated an extra €5.3 billion running costs - no doubt to rise
- Project was supposed to generate €9 billion per year income by 2015
- No income has yet been produced
HOW IT ALL WENT WRONG
In 2000, the EU Commission promised that:
“No funding in the form of subsidies will be necessary
downstream of the deployment phase.”
In March 2002 the EU Commission said there would be:
"a cost-share of at most 1/3rd from the Community budget
and at least 2/3rds from the private sector".
In 2007 the EU Commission 'nationalised' the project, after it went bankrupt.
100% of the cost is being borne by the taxpayer.
In 2009, the EU Commission was slammed in a report by the European Court of Auditors over its handling of the Galileo Project. They concluded there had been poor governance, poor financial control, and they even questioned the EU’s competence to manage things going forward.
In 2011, the CEO of a major German supplier to the project said Galileo was “a stupid idea” replicating what the American GPS system already does. For good measure he added that it was:
“A waste of EU taxpayers’ money
championed by French interests.”
He got fired for his honesty, naturally.
OBSERVATIONS
Since then, the EU money launchpad has kept on firing.
Like time, money is a relative concept within the minds of the elite Eureaucrats. When you’re on a six-figure salary and benefits package, and your pension is secured for life, you tend not to worry about the taxpayers who have to pay for your political projects.
And if there are errors along the way which cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions or even billions of euros, that’s unlikely to worry you. In the EU you’re practically unsackable.
We hope you're finding that we’ve distilled this work down into some highly-readable pieces for you. If you’re a mainstream journalist and would like all of our source files, please let us know here. And just remember:
In a galaxy far, far away in Brussels....
Taxpayers' money doesn't matter that much.
[ Sources: EU Commission | EU Legal Docs | European Space Agency | Dozens of other official sources as well as information from scientists working on the project ]
Journalists and politicians can contact us for the full list of links, as usual.
06.10am, 01 Apr 2018
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LOST IN SPACE : THE EU'S SATNAV PROJECT
PT 6: "IT'S THE POLITICS, STUPID"
© EU Commission
Some of you might wonder why the EU needed to develop its own SatNav system when we’ve all been using the American GPS system successfully for many years.
The answer is of course politics. EU politics. Below we provide the original rationale for starting this project, 24 years ago.
Here is the original Council Decision in 1994 :-
“The setting-up of a Global Navigation Satellite System for civil use will contribute to the attainment of important Community objectives, such as the completion of the internal market and the strengthening of economic and social cohesion...”
And the European Court of Auditors gave politics as the first of 3 reasons for the project :-
“There were three motives underlying the creation of Galileo: (a) political; (b) economic; and (c) technological”
There are now 4 SatNav systems in the world: the US’s GPS, Russia’s Glonass, the Chinese Beidou, and the EU’s Galileo.
GPS and Glonass are fully operational worldwide, and China’s service is on track to reach that status ahead of Galileo despite starting many years later. Galileo will be in fourth position out of four in terms of full service start date.
EU MILITARY & INTERNAL SECURITY OBJECTIVES QUIETLY GROW
The EU’s satellite systems project started as purely a civilian and commercial affair. As the years went by, however, military uses started being suggested more and more, with the EU starting to be a little more open about this from 2016, just after the Referendum.
As with many things, information likely to be damaging to the Remain campaign was suppressed until after the vote.
The UK has long had its own military satellites and it seems the EU would now like its own. We have gained access to many documents, some official and some less widely available. The direction of travel is very clear.
OF PUPPY DOGS' TAILS & MIGRANT BOATS
The EU plays up the uses of its satellite for what it believes will be uncontentious purposes, highlighting that the Copernicus system recently located 30 African migrants in a rubber boat off the coast of Spain, and that these migrants were then rescued by the Spanish coastguard. It also talks a great deal about monitoring climate change, and – this is perfectly true – for the locating of lost puppies.
The possibility of monitoring climate change is enough in and of itself to bring tears to the eyes of MEPs, merely by mentioning the subjet. Add puppies into the mix and… well… Where do I place my vote, Comrade?
The reality is slightly different.
“This is critical to support the implementation of EU policies and protect its infrastructures for border and maritime control, civil protection, air traffic management or drones,” says one EU Commission draft document we uncovered.
In 2009, space formally became an “EU competence” with the signing of the Lisbon Treaty. For something to become an EU competence is very important. In effect it allows the EU slowly to take control over that matter and to take it out of the hands of member states.
In November 2014, the Commission launched a study on the “Identification of the requirements for Satellite Communication to support EU Security Policies and Infrastructures”. Remember, when you see the word ‘security’ in an EU context it means both internal security and internal and external military capabilities.
In October 2016 the Commission launched its ‘Space Policy’.
“Space services can strengthen the EU’s and Member States’ capacity to tackle growing security challenges and improve the monitoring and control of flows which have security implications. Most space technologies, infrastructure and services can serve both civilian and defence objectives.
“Although some space capabilities have to remain under exclusive national and/or military control, in a number of areas synergies between civilian and defence can reduce costs, increase resilience and improve efficiency. The EU needs to better exploit these synergies.
“This will be a key theme of the European defence action plan, which is expected to highlight space’s crucial enabling role for civilian and defence capabilities.… the critical security and defence needs are not fully met today. The Commission is therefore working with the European Defence Agency and ESA to assess the demand for and feasibility of a new initiative providing resilient satellite communication services for governmental and institutional security users … [to] improve the EU’s capacity to respond to challenges related to migration, border control and maritime surveillance.”
OBSERVATIONS
The EU claims technical superiority of its Galileo system compared to GPS, although in fact the GPS system’s accuracy has been deliberately downgraded for civilian use by the US government, to combat terrorist and other threats to global security.
There are questions about whether the EU should really have embarked on this project at all. Certainly there are very serious questions to answer about how the EU is doing this. Should the Star-Troopers of the EU Commission really be running this?
When we read through the hundreds of documents we've uncovered about the EU satellite projects, we see the same signs as in so many other areas of EU activity. We see an inexorable march towards increasing control of every aspect of the member states' - and their citizens' - lives.
Space is no different. Soon, the EU's space programme - so much of which was funded by the UK - will be held out as being for the sole benefit of member states. If you dare to leave, you'll be cut out.
We very strongly hope that the MoD and DExEU have been working on this. Firstly, there's no question of the assets bought and paid for by the UK simply being appropriated by the EU and then the UK being told it can't have access.
Secondly we very much hope that the MoD has been working urgently to extract the UK military from the MoD's incursions into the use of EU satellites. Make no mistake, the MoD is infected with Remoanerism just as much as departments like the Treasury. We know, but unfortunately we can't tell you the details. Now these individuals must wake up to reality. The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union whether they like it or not, and they must now plan to treat the EU as a third party which may one day be potentially hostile.
At the very least the MoD must start acting purely in the United Kingdom's best interests.
We hope we’ve distilled this work down into some highly-readable pieces for you. If you’re a mainstream journalist and would like all of our source files, please let us know here. Perhaps the above is an interesting insight into the EU Empire.
In our opinion we still have light years to go before we see
whether the UK Rebels have what it takes to break free.
[ Sources: EU Commission | EU Legal Docs | European Space Agency | Dozens of other official sources as well as information from scientists working on the project ]
Journalists and politicians can contact us for the full list of links, as usual.
06.10am, 01 Apr 2018
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LOST IN SPACE : THE EU'S SATNAV PROJECT
PT 7: THE LESSONS FOR BREXIT
© EU Commission
In December 2016 the EU Commission announced: “Galileo goes live!”
On the same day, the Director of the European Space Agency's Galileo programme (the official partner of the EU Commission in the Galileo project) said:
"Much work remains to be done. The entire constellation needs to be deployed, the ground infrastructure needs to be completed and the overall system needs to be tested and verified."
Some may feel that the words of the leading scientist from the space agency may be a truer representation of the overall project picture than that given by EU Commissioners.
THE LESSONS FOR BREXIT
Doing business with the EU isn't like doing business with normal people. In Brussels, reality has a habit of being described as something the EU would like it to be.
Below is the actual reality, distilled from an enormous amount of research.
OUR BREXIT FACTS4EU.ORG SUMMARY - GALILEO PROJECT
- So far the Galileo Project has taken 24 years from initiation in 1994
- This EU taxpayer-funded SatNav system is still only 47% complete
- The original deadline for completion passed 11 years ago
- The budget has rocketed to 7 times the original figure
- It’s now equivalent to half the entire annual GDP for EU member state Estonia
- The project will not now complete until 2020 - maybe
- That would mean 26 years in the making and 13 years after the first deadline
OBSERVATIONS
We have tried to present you with the headline information, condensed into readable segments.
For Brexit to become reality, the UK government must understand the disconnect in the minds of Eureaucrats between the real world and the alternative universe these Brussels-dwellers inhabit. The Galileo project is just one of many, many examples of this.
If the British government had understood - or wanted to understand - this, and if it had negotiated accordingly, Brexit would be much further forward than it is.
Instead - and let's be honest here - the government hasn't agreed one single thing on the British Brexit agenda. Every single red line has been crossed - or fudged, which is almost worse.
It really doesn't matter what spin they try to put on it, and Theresa May, David Davis and other ministers can say all they like. Various large, supposedly pro-Brexit organisations can back the government all they like (and they seem to like to do that) but the reality is the reality.
On Thursday we didn't celebrate the 'one year to go' anniversary because in one year's time nothing will change, except that the UK will become a colony of the EU with no say in its laws and with a foreign court having precedence over the UK's Supreme Court. Free movement continues, as does the payment of massive sums to the EU.
Two years ago we wrote: "It will rapidly become clear that anything other than a firm and factual stance will result in years of pointless delays." This prediction has stood the test of time.
Nevertheless, it's still not too late and on this Easter Sunday we're not disheartened. Very tired after producing the series above for you, but not disheartened. We still have fight in us and we won't give up. We will continue to produce good quality reports like this one and we will continue to lobby MPs, MEPs, and even foreign politicians, to push for a full,clean Brexit.
The full, clean Brexit that we voted for. Not the current offering which isn't Brexit at all. We want a bright, shiny Easter egg of a Brexit, packed with good things!
Happy Easter, everyone.
[ Sources: EU Commission | EU Legal Docs | European Space Agency | Dozens of other official sources as well as information from scientists working on the project ]
Journalists and politicians can contact us for the full list of links, as usual.
06.10am, 31 Mar 2018
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