On October 30, 2009, Vice Minister Cao Jianlin met with a ESA Delegation headed by Mr. René Oosterlinck, ESA Director of the Galileo Programme and Navigation-related Activities. The two sides held a friendly and in-depth discussion on the China-EU Galileo Cooperation and other issues of common concern. Representatives from Department of International Cooperation, Department of High and New Technology Development and Industrialization, National Remote Sensing Center of China were present at the meeting.

VM Cao reviewed and spoke highly of the fruitful achievements during the In-orbit Validation phase (IOV) of Galileo Cooperation, and expressed willingness of China to push forward the cooperation continuously, according to the agreement between the two sides. Cao also exchanged views with Mr. René Oosterlinck on the Compatibility issues between Galileo and Compass. As a system providing service to global users, Compass has a main object and task of realizing compatibility with other GNSS systems on which both sides have held talks through various channels and should further boost communication and coordination. Regarding to the cooperation on the following phase of Galileo, Cao suggested the two parties enhance contact with each other to cope with the new situation and deepen pragmatic cooperation; expand cooperative fields on the current base to achieve “win-win” between China and EU.

Mr. René Oosterlinck fully affirmed the joint efforts and great achievements of both sides in the Galileo cooperation, and indicated that the EU side is quite willing to continuously enhance exchange and cooperation between the two sides. Besides, he strongly agreed with VM Cao’s suggestion, saying that he would like to make efforts to bring forward a feasible plan along with Chinese side to solve the issues of both concern and attention.