Telegraph,
The European Union is building its own network of spy satellites allowing Brussels to ensure nations and private individuals are obeying its policies, it was announced yesterday.
The multi-billion-pound system, known as “Global Monitoring for Environment and Security” (GMES), should be up and running by 2010, a commission spokesman said. Announcing the launch of a “pilot stage” for GMES, the commission stressed its “user-friendly” application in guiding relief work after disasters or providing real time images of forest fires or oil spills.
But a commission memo also acknowledged that GMES would play a key role in the “implementation, review and monitoring of EU policies”, including watching for agriculture and fisheries fraud and boosting “internal security”.
In addition, officials hope GMES will support the EU's first steps towards becoming a military power. It will “provide authorities with necessary elements for a European Security and Defence Policy”, the commission memo said.
The commission in Brussels will identify and develop possible uses for GMES. The management of the satellites will fall to the European Space Agency (ESA), which pools the space resources of 15 EU member states, including Britain, plus Norway and Switzerland.
US politicians are already suspicious of the ESA's “Galileo” project, a 30-satellite global navigation system designed to improve on the Pentagon-controlled GPS system. The EU's invitation to China to become a major investor only increased US concern.
Gregor Kreuzhuber, the commission's spokesman for industry policy, yesterday described GMES as “a little brother for Galileo, a sort of satellite system where you can better monitor what is happening on our planet”.
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