The Industry Committee in the European Parliament amended the draft legislation on Galileo, the European GPS system, and the EGNOS programmes for improving GPS signal quality, for more of the new services to be offered free of charge. Moreover, MEPs approved new legislation to ensure that Europe's two satellite navigation systems can be funded and operated from 2014 to 2020.

The European Commission has earmarked €7.9 billion to complete the EU's satellite navigation infrastructure over the seven-year period. The ITRE Committee in the European Parliament approved amends to this proposal in order to ensure that Europe's two satellite navigation systems - Galileo, the European GPS system, and the EGNOS programmes for improving GPS signal quality - can be funded and operated from 2014 to 2020. On the other hand, the Galileo's second launch of two satellites was foreseen in September 2012.

Among the changes, MEPs called in amendments to the draft legislation for more of the new services to be offered free of charge. The Public Regulated Service, which will ensure, from 2014, that key services such as police and ambulance services continue to operate in times of crisis, must be free, they say. So must the Safety of Life Service, a European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) programme, which will be fully available later and will make air navigation safer.

MEPs also called on the member states and the European External Action Service (EEAS) to consider reviewing international law or drawing up a new treaty to take account of technological progress since the 1960s, with a view to preventing an arms race in outer space, after pointed to the navigation and guidance role that the Public Regulated Service could play in various weapons systems.