Boris Johnson manages to leave the European Union but maintains an à la carte menu with Brussels on space matters

British diplomats have shown their pragmatism and have once again proved themselves to be great negotiators. Instead, Brussels is trying to sell to the rest of the citizens of the European Union the terrible consequences that His Gracious Majesty's subjects will suffer from 1 January this year.

But the politicians who govern Britain's destiny do not share this view, particularly as the successive tenants of 10 Downing Street are not characterised by suicidal behaviour.

In the end, in its four years of tug-of-war with Brussels, London seems to have taken the cat out of the bag on a number of issues, having obtained a number of not inconsiderable concessions. For example, the team of British negotiators has succeeded in getting the exemption from restrictions on the movement of goods and services for Northern Ireland, which applies to England, Wales and Scotland.

And as far as Spain is concerned, Gibraltar has managed to extract a number of advantages which, in the absence of the terms of the agreement principle, could lead to a large number of companies, organisations and individuals being domiciled on the Rock. As if this were not enough, The Rock is on its way to becoming a major route of entry for British citizens into the countries of the European Union.

In short, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has managed to distance himself from the European Union in ways that displease him, limit the United Kingdom's ability to make autonomous decisions and do not benefit its economy. On the contrary, Britain has managed to remain linked in one way or another with Brussels in what interests it from the point of view of its economic, industrial or strategic interests.

An example of the à la carte selection that the head of the British negotiating delegation, the veteran diplomat David Frost, has taken away from the French diplomatic expert Michel Barnier is the different involvement that Great Britain will now have with the four major space projects in which the European Union is immersed.

London has managed to retain its participation in Copernicus, the major global Earth observation programme led by Brussels, whose purpose is to generate and produce images, data and information to implement European policies on environmental preservation and public safety.

Thanks to the EU's concessions, UK users will have open and free access to the vast majority of data and services provided by the various Sentinel satellites in the Copernicus constellation, including those that increase surveillance of the islands' land and sea borders. The measure ensures that UK companies, academics and researchers can bid for future Copernicus contracts tendered across the EU.

The negotiation was extremely difficult. Copernicus is a joint programme between the European Union and the European Space Agency (ESA) and two key issues had to be reconciled. The United Kingdom has left the EU, but remains a full member of the ESA, an intergovernmental organisation outside Brussels created in 1975 to secure European space capabilities and investments for the benefit of its citizens. In addition, Brussels contributes 70 percent of the 5.4 billion euros of its total funding to Copernicus and the ESA the remaining 30 percent.

Unlike Copernicus, London is permanently abandoning the major space programme Galileo, Europe's satellite navigation and positioning system, which competes with the United States' GPS, Russia's GLONASS and China's Beidou. Having for the moment ruled out the idea of setting up a national GPS, it is expected to strengthen its links with Washington, which is placing its new GPS III satellites in orbit, with features similar to those offered by Galileo.

Despite defecting from Galileo, the vast majority of UK users of electronic devices - mainly mobile phones - will be able to continue using Galileo, as will UK businesses and organisations. They will all continue to have access to the free and open position, navigation and timing services provided by Galileo, while being able to develop products and services for consumers around the world, with the advantage that they know the ins and outs of the network.

Conversely, British companies, academics and researchers with contracts related to or expected to have Galileo will have to renegotiate the terms of their agreements, which also extends to British organisations hosting or managing Galileo ground infrastructure.

The same resolution has been taken in London with regard to the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), a system that provides enhanced navigation services to facilitate air, sea and land transport across Europe. The measure means that users in the United Kingdom, from 25 June 2021, will no longer have access to the EGNOS data service which, together with Galileo, has a budget of ?9 billion for the coming years.

In the EU's space monitoring and surveillance programme (EUSST), David Frost's negotiating team has achieved a real breakthrough. Third in importance to Brussels, the UK has managed to continue using the services provided by the programme, allowing its communication satellite operators to receive free data to avoid collisions in space due to space debris.

However, the UK has excluded itself from the programme because it has an agreement with Washington on this matter, which provides it with all the necessary information. It will not carry out any activity in this initiative valued at EUR442 million, nor will it allow its scientists and technicians to participate in the working groups.  And it has ruled out taking part in GovSatCom, a project to deploy a constellation of government satellite communications. It is being driven by Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, who is responsible for the space and defence industry.