Posted: Sun, Mar 30, 2003, 3:43 PM ET (2043 GMT)
The governments of Germany and Italy announced Friday that they had reached an agreement regarding how to divvy up contracts for the Galileo satellite navigation system. The two governments jointly announced the deal after months of negotiations that had held up ESA's participation in the early phases of Galileo. According to Reuters, Galileo Industries, the industry consortium that will manage the project, will be headquartered in Germany and led by an executive of satellite manufacturer Astrium. The deputy CEO will come from Alenia Spazio, an Italian aerospace company, and will control four major contracts for the project. The dispute between Germany and Italy had kept ESA from formalizing its plans for Galileo and had led the European Union, ESA's partner in Galileo, to announce earlier in the week it was willing to move forward without ESA if no deal could be reached by the end of the week. The deal still needs to be approved by ESA, which plans to meet in the next several days to ratify the accord.

Related Links:

•  Reuters article
•  AFP article
•  Dow Jones article