The European Parliament adopted a resolution drafted by Etelka BARSI-PATAKY (EPP-ED, HU) making some amendments to the Commission’s proposal. The principal amendment envisages a profit-sharing mechanism to permit the refunding of the EU’s contribution to the two phases, in view of the anticipated profits from the programme’s commercial operation. The amendments in the report are as follows:
-the Regulation concerns the ‘programmes’, referring to the GALILEO and EGNOS programmes. EGNOS is a programme aiming at augmenting the American GPS and Russian GLONASS signals for reliability purposes across a broad geographical area. It is independent from and complementary to GALILEO;
-Parliament specified the time-frame for the different phases of the programme, i.e. the deployment phase (2006-2010) and the commercial operating phase (2008 onwards);
- the figure of EUR 1 billion for the financial framework is indicative, pending a decision on the financial perspective.
-in cases where financial guarantees in excess of the budgetary allocation are to be undertaken by the Community either directly or indirectly, including the concession contract, they must be subject to approval by the European Parliament and the Council in accordance with the applicable budgetary rules;
- in cases where liability commitments in excess of the budgetary allocation are to be undertaken by the Community either directly or indirectly, including the concession contract, they must also be subject to approval by the European Parliament and the Council in accordance with the applicable budgetary rules;
- a profit-sharing mechanism will be established in order to ensure the repayment of the Community contribution to the deployment and commercial operating phases.
- the concession holder will be entitled to receive the revenues deriving from the exploitation of licences and intellectual property rights for system components, ownership of which should rest with the Supervisory Authority;
- taking into account the specific nature of the programmes, the European Parliament, in order to be able to fulfil its budgetary role, will have observer status on the Administrative Board of the Supervisory Authority;
- the amount of each annual subsidy shall be decided in the framework of the EU budgetary procedure, and not on determined on the basis of the work programme of the Supervisory Authority;
-finally, every year, upon presentation of the preliminary draft budget, the Commission will present a report to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of the programmes. In 2007, a mid-term review shall be carried out in order to inform the European Parliament and the Council of the progress reached by that time.