Introductory text

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Regulation (EU) No 1285/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 on the implementation and exploitation of European satellite navigation systems and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 876/2002 and Regulation (EC) No 683/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council^f1, and in particular Article 12(3)(d) thereof,

Whereas:

Article 12 of Regulation (EU) No 1285/2013 provides that the Commission shall have overall responsibility for the EGNOS programme and confers on it implementing powers to determine the technical and operational specifications necessary for EGNOS system evolution.

The EGNOS system has already evolved, as version 1 was introduced in the 2000s, followed by version 2 in 2009. The three services offered by the system, namely the open service, the commercial data dissemination service (‘EDAS’) and the safety-of-life service (‘SoL’) defined in Article 2(5) of Regulation (EU) No 1285/2013 became operational on 30 October 2009, 26 July 2012 and 12 March 2011 respectively.

In order to comply with the characteristics and meet the specific objectives of the EGNOS programme referred to in Article 2 of Regulation (EU) No 1285/2013, it is now important to determine the technical and operational specifications of a version 3 of the system. This version 3, which should be brought into service in the 2020s, would be an improvement on version 2 because, in technical terms, it would include on the one hand the monitoring and correction of the signals of the open service offered by the system established under the Galileo programme, and on the other hand the use of double frequency, both for the GPS system and for that of the Galileo programme.

The technical evolution of version 2 to version 3 would improve the geographic coverage of the three services offered by the system and enhance their performance.

With regard to geographic coverage, system evolution would aim, first of all, to guarantee coverage of all territories of the EU Member States geographically located in Europe, including the Azores, the Canary Islands and Madeira. An extension of this coverage beyond the borders of the EU Member States to include the EU candidate countries and the countries involved in the EU neighbourhood policy would also be possible, subject to technical feasibility and on the basis of international agreements, under the conditions set out in the last subparagraph of Article 2(5) of Regulation (EU) No 1285/2013.

Performance, mainly that of the ‘SoL’ service, should be improved in version 3 of the system, compared to version 2.

For the open service, an improvement in performance would involve providing precise data in terms of time measurement, such as differences between the time used by EGNOS on the one hand, and the UTC time and the GPS system time on the other hand.

For the ‘EDAS’ service, this improvement would above all serve to reduce the data-transmission time to two seconds and reduce the lapse of time during which the service is not available.

However, the performance enhancement achieved by version 3 of the EGNOS system should concern mainly the ‘SoL’ service, particularly for the sectors of civil aviation and maritime transport.

For civil aviation and in order to adequately meet air navigation needs, in particular with respect to the optimisation of traffic flow between various geographical areas, version 3 should provide a new ‘Cat I Precision Approach’ service in addition to the three services already on offer in version 2, i.e. the ‘En-Route — Non-precision Approach’, ‘Approach with Vertical Guidance APV-I’ and ‘LPV 200 Approach’. Furthermore, the availability of the ‘LPV 200 Approach’ service would be significantly increased because the time period during which this service is available should fall within the range of 0,99 to 0,999.

In civil aviation, it is also important to ensure that the SoL service continues to comply with Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1035/2011^f2. Indeed, as set out in recital 14 of this Regulation, air navigation service providers should operate in compliance with the relevant standards of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, pending the complete transposition of the standards of that international organisation into EU law.

For maritime transport, version 3 of the EGNOS system should introduce the ‘SoL’ service in accordance with the international standards laid down by the International Maritime Organisation, allowing new EGNOS applications which, thanks to their greater precision, would benefit this sector in terms of effectiveness and safety. To this end and bearing in mind the constraints inherent to navigation close to the coast, on the approach to and when entering ports, the extension of the ‘SoL’ service to the maritime sector should in particular provide for a very high degree of availability, over 0,998 on a scale ranging from 0 to 1, guaranteeing the integrity of the service in an interval of less than ten seconds and lateral precision of less than 10 metres.

In addition to this, in order not to affect EGNOS users or compromise the current commercial applications, the technical and operational specifications of version 3 of the EGNOS system should be compatible with those of version 2 so as not to jeopardise what has been achieved so far, or result in degrading current possible uses, to the detriment of users.

In order to complete the technical evolution of version 2 to version 3 of the system, the technical and operational specifications set out in the Annex must be established.

The measures provided for in this Decision comply with the opinion of the committee established pursuant to Article 36(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1285/2013,

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