While the participants engaged in much discussion there of Iraq, trade and other issues, the most significant result of the meeting may have been an agreement to ensure that Europes Galileo navigation system does not interfere with the frequencies used by Americas Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system .

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Watch this space

But America's fears are economic as well as military: it suspects that the EU might try, for instance, requiring aircraft entering its air space to use Galileo-based navigation systems, to the detriment of American firms with products based on GPS. And European countries, China and the like might develop weapons that are compatible with Galileo rather than GPS, which would mean American defence firms losing a competitive advantage.

ECONOMIST: Space race | The

Take the arguments for building an expensive EU satellite navigation system, Galileo.

ECONOMIST: Charlemagne

We questioned the starry-eyed revenue and expense forecasts for Galileo, a European satellite navigation venture designed to compete with the U.S.' Global Positioning System.

FORBES

Others say that only Galileo, Europe's planned satellite navigation system, will give the accuracy required.

ECONOMIST: Another humiliating blow for German industrial policy

It integrates a multi-GNSS location engine supporting GPS, Galileo, Glonass and Compass satellites to improve the navigation system performance in obstructed environments, Combined with SiRFDRive(R) dead reckoning software, the SiRFprimaII delivers seamless navigation experience whether driving in dense urban canyons or through tunnels or multistory parking lots.

ENGADGET: CSR sharpens indoor and in-car navigation with SiRFstarV, SiRFusion and SiRFprimaII

Though direct revenues alone would not make Galileo profitable, adding in the indirect economic gains resulting from better navigation of land, sea and air vehicles would produce a benefit-to-cost ratio of as much as 4.6 to 1.

ECONOMIST: Space race | The