"A satellite navigation system goes far beyond providing location information — it is sovereign infrastructure that can determine a nation's fate. If you rely solely on another country's technology and suddenly lose access to it, you must accept the risk of your entire national system being paralyzed."
Dominik Hays, a policy officer at the European Commission, made these remarks in an interview at the European Union building in Brussels, Belgium, on June 10 local time, stressing the importance of an independent satellite navigation system. Hays, who oversees spectrum management and international relations policy, cited risk mitigation above all else as the reason the EU continues to upgrade Galileo.
Galileo began as Europe's answer to the US Global Positioning System (GPS) and is now an independent European satellite navigation system embedded in more than 4 billion smartphones worldwide. It boasts broad versatility — functional even in remote parts of Africa. Building on this foundation, the EU has further expanded Galileo's utility by offering free access to its High Accuracy Service (HAS), which provides centimeter-level precision, and its Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA), which prevents message tampering and spoofing. Starting next year, a service will also be launched to deliver real-time disaster alerts to smartphones. "Galileo goes beyond convenience features like navigation — it plays a pivotal role in the European economy by enabling precise timing for defense, power grids and telecommunications infrastructure," Hays said.
Asked about the secret behind Galileo's establishment as an essential European system, Hays explained, "A key success factor was close collaboration with global companies like Qualcomm and Apple from the earliest design stages." He added, "We supported everything our partners needed so they could build a broad ecosystem unique to Galileo."
