The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, has said Britain is not being pushed out of the Galileo satellite navigation programme, but that only “a little progress” had been made in recent talks on the UK’s EU exit.
Barnier said British participation in the EU satellite programme would have to change as a result of Brexit. “The UK decided unilaterally and autonomously to withdraw from the EU,” he told an audience of foreign policy experts in Brussels. “We need to put the cooperation on Galileo between the EU and the UK on a new basis.”
The EU’s rules on Galileo had been in place for a long time and were well known to the UK, he added.
Earlier on Monday Barnier updated the EU27’s Europe ministers on the talks. He said there had been a little progress in Brexit talks, but there was a risk of failure linked to the Irish border and the role of the European court of justice in a post-Brexit dispute-resolution system.
Nobody should “underestimate the key rendezvous of June”, Barnier said, referring to the EU summit that month, when EU leaders will decide on next steps. “The clock is ticking,” he added.
He reiterated warnings that a mooted transition deal would collapse without a Brexit deal in place by October, saying: “The only legal base for the transition is article 50. That means if we want a transition we must have agreement on the withdrawal.”
Amid stalemate in Theresa May’s cabinet over future UK-Irish customs arrangements, British companies are being frozen out of contracts that run beyond the UK’s Brexit departure date of March 2019. The European commission argues it would wrong for a non-member state to have access to secure information.
Last week a senior boss at Airbus’s Portsmouth arm told MPs that a potential €200m (£176m) contract between the European Space Agency and the company would have to be moved to the continent because of Brexit.
The commission says non-EU countries cannot participate in the development of Galileo, although the UK would still be able to use the encrypted signal, pending an agreement.
Some observers thinks the tough stance contradicts the potential transition deal in which the UK preserves the status quo, without voting rights, until the end of 2020.
Barnier made his comments on Galileo, as he outlined his hopes for a “close partnership” between the EU and the UK to fight terrorism, cyber-attacks and other “hybrid-threats” to Europe’s security.
He said the EU would welcome British involvement in EU development programmes and research into military technology. He added that the EU would also look at the UK’s participation in the EU’s overseas civilian and military missions, although he noted that the UK’s contribution had been “marginal so far”.
British personnel have accounted for just 2.3% of the staff of the EU’s military and police-training missions, which are in eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. One exception is the EU’s antipiracy operation, which has its headquarters in Northwood, on the outskirts of London.
British diplomats have embarked on a diplomatic mission to keep Operation Atalanta in Northwood, while the commission insists that the British operational headquarters and its 56 British staff must go.
Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said the UK would be able to take part in EU foreign policy missions in future, as other non-EU states do. “There are some bonds that cannot be broken,” he said, but added that the future relationship would be “radically different” as a result of Brexit. “The centre of gravity moves from being a decision-maker, to being potentially a beneficiary or someone that joins decision that had been taken by others,” Mogherini said.