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Vincent Padois, head tutor at the Pierre and Marie Curie University who teaches robotics and is babysitting the Paris ICub, makes a demonstration with ICub robot, a ?hybrid embodied cognitive system for a humanoid robot" about 1 metre (3.2 feet) high, at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris September 4, 2009. Six versions of ICub exist in laboratories across Europe, where scientists are painstakingly tweaking its electronic brain to make it capable of learning, just like a human child and hoping it will learn how to adapt its behaviour to changing circumstances, offering new insights into the development of human consciousness. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

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    EU says costs for Galileo satellite project reliable

    BRUSSELS
    Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:58am EST

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    EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot addresses a news conference at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels September 19, 2007. The EU defended on Monday its 3.4 billion euro ($5 billion) cost forecast for the Galileo satellite navigation program following a report the budget is bound to be seriously overrun. REUTERS/Thierry Roge

    BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission defended on Monday its 3.4 billion euro ($5 billion) cost forecast for the Galileo satellite navigation program following a report the budget is bound to be seriously overrun.

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    The German weekly Der Spiegel has quoted a confidential Berlin government report as forecasting that Galileo, aimed at rivaling the U.S. Global Positioning System, will cost at least 1.5 billion euros more than the EU executive believes.

    "The estimates we have are really based on solid ground," the Commission's transport spokesman, Michele Cercone, told a daily news briefing.

    Der Spiegel also quoted unidentified financial and industry experts as saying Galileo could end up costing between 5 billion and 10 billion euros.

    Cercone said the Commission's forecast embraced the cost of building infrastructure needed to launch the project in 2013. He added other forecasts could be based on different periods.

    Galileo has been plagued by years of doubts about its viability and cost despite Commission arguments that it would create thousands of jobs and ensure independence from the U.S. service.

    EU budget ministers agreed late last year to funnel unused public funds, mostly earmarked for farm subsidies, to cover a 2.4 billion euro gap left after a group of private companies pulled out of the project over profitability concerns.

    The firms included EADS (EAD.PA), France's Thales (TCFP.PA) and Alcatel-Lucent (ALUA.PA), Britain-based Inmarsat (ISA.L), Italy's Finmeccanica (SIFI.MI), Spain's AENA and Hispasat and a German group that included Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE).

    (Reporting by Marcin Grajewski, editing by Dale Hudson)
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