Just as has bedevilled Airbus, discord between the various European players is killing off Europe’s Galileo project, whose high ambitions aimed to create a satellite navigational system with which Europe hoped to rival the American GPS.

Malta, which had applied to host the Galileo head office, is widely considered to have lost its battle in such turbulent waters.

Basically, what is happening is that the eight companies who form the Galileo consortium are engaged in a very EU common phenomenon – fighting against all others – as to how costs will be covered.

Observers see this conflict as ensuring the almost monopoly so far enjoyed by the Americans and may even lead to the possibility of the Chinese, who have quietly launched their Beidou satellite recently, overtaking the Europeans.

The European Commissioner for Transport, Jacques Barrot, has written to the German presidency to stigmatise the behaviour of the consortium members – Finmeccanica (Italy), Aena and Hispsat (Spain), Alcatel and Thales (France), Eads (France-Germany), Inmarsat (UK) and TeleOp (Germany). Barrot warned that the many delays so far accumulated and no progress being registered in the negotiations is risking the whole project.

Even the talks regarding where the operating centre of Galileo should be located have broken down. At first it seemed that the Czech Republic which proposed Prague was ahead, but then came the swift vetoes from France, which proposed Strasbourg, already the seat of the European Parliament, Germany, which wanted Munich, and the UK, which wanted Cardiff. These vetoes soon blocked discussions.

There were also the candidacies of Malta and Slovenia but the common opinion in the European capitals is that the European heads of government usually have their biggest arguments when the allocation of any EU institute is concerned and that small nations almost always lose out.

The meetings of the European ministers of transport under the German presidency will continue to discuss this contentious issue with little possibility of any agreement. To paraphrase and twist the original Galileo adage: Eppur non si muove.