Public and Private Partnerships as Dilemmas between Efficiency and Democratic Accountability: The Case of Galileo

This article analyses public–private partnerships (PPPs), which are characterized by shared public authority between public and private actors. The question asked is how well the officials handle the vertical and contractual relationship with the private actors, given the requirement of democratic accountability according to the hierarchical, liberal model of representative democracy. The case study is Galileo, Europe’s satellite radio navigation system that can be regarded as a fairly technical and traditional European partnership in the infrastructure sector. The main conclusion is, however, that Galileo is highly complex in both political and economic terms. In spite of this complexity, or precisely because of it, officials are left with very little political guidance and directives. It is also surprising that the market actors seem to be given so much room for manoeuvre in the programme. It can be argued that the power of the officials in designing Galileo is problematic from a democratic perspective. There are basically two reasons for this. The first is that the general political goals for the partnership are too general and have little impact on and contact with the day‐to‐day activities. It is the officials rather than the politicians that have influence over the PPPs. The second reason is that the private actors do not only run the programme in an overall sense, they will also make important decisions in its daily management. The private actors thus have influence within important public infrastructure but are not democratically accountable for their decisions. Hence, the case of Galileo shows that a fairly simple task — the offering of satellite navigation signals — is highly complex. The conclusions from this study therefore suggest that PPPs in even more complex policy areas need to be analysed carefully before any decisions on a partnership are reached.