European Space Agency Considers Mars Landing Sites

The ESA is planning to launch a mission in 2013 which will have as its main goal the search for current or previous life on Mars. The mission, called ExoMars, plans to land rovers near the oldest rocks on Mars, in the hope that they were around when Mars had running water and thus life. The site chosen for ExoMars may depend somewhat on the NASA mission for the Mars Science Laboratory, which will launch in 2009 and take one of the sites.

The european rover would weigh 200kg, of which 16.5kg would be scientific equipment. The total cost is said to be in the neighborhood of 1 Billion Euros, which at today's prices is 1.5 Billion Dollars. This is exactly the type of project NASA has been afraid of recently because of the huge cost of failure.
There is a bit of a political struggle between the European ECA and the Russian Proton rocket. Right now it sounds like the European ( French Built ) rocket will be chosen. However, launching using the ECA would cost 60 million more euros than the Proton rocket.

Source: BBC