MADRID, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Spain has been selected by the European Commission to host the Galileo Security Monitoring Support Center (GSMC), the Spanish ministry of public works reported on Thursday.
The GSMC will move to Spain from Britain due to Brexit and should be fully operational as of March next year, the ministry said.
The European Commission's decision of moving the center to Spain will bring to the country "strategic advantages, industrial development of high technological value, and the consolidation of national knowledge and technology in the area of security," the ministry said.
Spain was selected from a total of eight countries. It has offered the facilities of the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA), which belong to the defense ministry, and are located in Madrid.
The GSMC is a European satellite navigation system that is under development and will provide very accurate position data. The ministry noted that "global satellite navigation systems, known as GNSS, are strategic for the countries' economy and defense areas."
The GSMC is operated by the European GNSS Agency (GSA) in charge of supervising and acting on cases such as security threats and alerts.
Spain has another of the fundamental centers of the program, the Loyola de Palacio GNSS Service Center, also located in Madrid.
