International GNSS Cooperation – Strategic Objectives
The emergence of new global and regional navigation satellite systems, as well as satellite-based augmentation systems, has made the necessity for international cooperation on satellite navigation even stronger.
International GNSS cooperation is carried out at policy, technical and service provision levels. The main issues of international GNSS cooperation are listed below:
- Compatibility: This means that GNSS systems can be used together or separately without interfering with each individual service or signal, and that non-military (and non-governmental) can be jammed without adversely affecting those signals.
- Interoperability: This refers to the ability of GNSS systems to be used together to provide the user better capabilities than would be achieved by relying solely on one service or signal.
- Cooperation to promote transparency in civil service provision.
- Cooperation to ensure market access to industry.
- International activities to detect and mitigate harmful interference.
The development of European GNSS is strongly linked to international cooperation. Besides efforts towards compatibility and interoperability with other GNSS providers, international cooperation focuses on fostering the uptake of Galileo and EGNOS worldwide. There are several bilateral GNSS cooperation agreements in force while more are in the discussion phase.
Except for issues listed previously, the EU is actively seeking GNSS cooperation on standardisation, research, Galileo applications, SBAS and EGNOS extensions, security and trade matters.
The EU supports several GNSS-related international projects. Examples of past projects include the Galileo Information Centre for Latin America and EURO-MED GNSS project.
The International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ICG) formed in 2005 to promote international GNSS cooperation activities.