Re: Well that's weird....
"Note, by the way, that ESA membership is nothing to do with the EU."
Indeed, but membership of the high accuracy parts of Gallileo and suchlike DOES have a requirement of being part of the EU - and that extends down to subcontractors, so there isn't a lot that will be allowed to happen in on the British mainland before the people signing the contract cheques get stroppy.
This "stupid rule" was rammed through by the UK on behalf of the USA, in order to lock China out of Gallileo's military bits. China's response was to say "ah, ok" and revive it's Compass/Beidou 2 plans instead.
Given that this turn of events took a significant chuck of change out of the Gallileo budgets, ESA and the EU are more than happy to let turn and turn-about be fair play. In most other cases, these "Unfair EU rules" about non-EU members not being allowed to play were actually drawn up by the UK in the first place, so the rest of the EU is engaging in a large degree of quite justified Schadenfreude.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
