Galileo cash boost puts GPS in the shade

The EU has agreed to donate a further E450m (£276m) for a satellite navigation network set to rival Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, called Galileo.

Galileo will be developed over the next four years at a total cost of around E3.4bn (£2bn) including money from the European Space Agency and an earlier E100m (£61m) round of funding from the EU. It is expected to be fully operational by 2008.

The project will create more than 100,000 jobs and the system, when finished, will rival GPS, determining individual's locations to within one metre via an enabled mobile phone handset or similar device.

GPS is currently unable to provide such accurate results and the system's European developers are already heralding its relative benefits over the US-developed GPS system.

The US has called upon the EU to ensure Galileo is interoperable with GPS technology.