UK to drop claim for £1.2bn satellite cash

BRITAIN is to abandon plans to claw back £1.2billion from the EU over the Galileo satellite navigation system, it emerged last night.

Ministers agreed a strategy of trying to demand a refund from the satellite scheme in May after Brussels said the UK would be locked out of some future developments after Brexit.

But last night sources said the claim would be dropped after warnings British firms could be ruled out of future EU contracts.

The news came as Theresa May confirmed the UK would now develop its own rival system.

At the G20 summit in Argentina, she said: ‘Given the European Commission’s decision to bar the UK from being fully involved in developing all aspects of Galileo, it’s only right we find alternatives.

‘I cannot let our armed services depend on a system we cannot be sure of. That would not be in our national interest. And, as a global player with worldclass engineers and steadfast allies around the world, we are not short of options.’

Galileo was conceived as an alternative to America’s GPS satellite navigation system on which we currently rely for both military and civilian applications.

The British system will be compatible with GPS so the two can act as back-ups for each other if one is knocked out by a cyber attack.