Is Galileo really just an EU Big Brother in Space?

I have been wondering of late why every rural road in the region where I live in South West France has been adorned with large white numbers counting the distance at every kilometre between nowhere of any significance and somewhere else of similar unimportance or even just another similarly strangely numbered junction with another such previously pleasant and unspoiled country road.

Open Europe has published some research on the always pointless seeming EU Galileo space satellite project, linked here. Let's face it the US system has been in existence for years, worked splendidly without fail for my own transatlantic navigations on my yacht and during subsequent coastal water cruising and seems perfectly adequate for similar car navigation systems widely in use today.

Mary Ellen Synon in her own blog on the topic raises other interesting points as always and that is linked here. What seems unmentioned is the Big Brother capabilities of the system, could this be an explanation for all those numbers on the roads? Does the EU now wish to monitor even every movement we make in our daily lives, nothing about this monstrous EU project would come as a complete surprise anymore, but surely these fears of mine are absurd? But are they, why else are the numbers flat to the sky rather than vertical for ease of view by the traveller, such as on old mile posts?