With today’s unveiling of the EU Space Act, Brussels has launched itself headlong into yet another arena it scarcely understands — promising to make Europe’s space sector “cleaner, safer and more competitive,” while in practice threatening to strangle it with regulation before it ever truly lifts off.
At first glance, the Act reads like a technocrat’s dream: sweeping harmonisation, streamlined authorisations, a level playing field. Space, the Commission says, is becoming congested, contested, and carbon-intensive. Without urgent action, satellites will collide, signals will be hacked, and orbits will become graveyards of debris and lost opportunity. The Act’s three pillars — safety, resilience, and sustainability — are offered as the solution.
It all sounds reasonable, but behind the reassuring language lies a more familiar pattern: yet another centralising effort by Brussels to exert legal control over what was once the sovereign and scientific domain of member states. And as ever, the result is likely to be another an increase in bureaucracy and compliance, and certainly not a renaissance in European innovation.
Consider the first pillar: safety. The Commission warns of a looming orbital apocalypse — 11,000 satellites already circling the Earth, with 50,000 more expected in the coming decade, and over 128 million pieces of debris hurtling through space at bullet speeds. To prevent disaster, Brussels proposes tighter tracking requirements, mandatory end-of-life disposal, and binding limitations on new debris.
All well and good, but these are not new concerns. Agencies like CNES in France and DLR in Germany already monitor orbital traffic. The European Space Agency (ESA) has developed sophisticated debris-mitigation protocols. What the EU proposes is not collaboration or coordination, but legislation — top-down edicts from a Commission with neither the engineering expertise nor the operational mandate of ESA.
The same holds true for resilience. The EU rightly points to growing threats: cyberattacks, jamming, and hostile spinterference with satellites and ground stations. In response, the Space Act introduces mandatory cybersecurity assessments, risk reports, and compliance frameworks for every stage of a satellite’s lifecycle. Yet again, what could have been managed through voluntary standards or ESA guidance has become a regulatory dragnet, pulling even fledgling space start-ups into the regulatory orbit of Brussels.
And then comes the inevitable third pillar: sustainability. Because no EU legislative project is complete without a dose of climate evangelism, the Space Act proposes measuring the carbon footprint of satellite manufacturing, rocket launches, and orbital servicing. Firms will need to report emissions, resource use, and environmental impacts, even for missions launched from other continents.
It is difficult to overstate the absurdity. In a theatre where Earth’s atmosphere is physically absent, the EU insists on environmental accounting. Should we expect carbon credits for low-earth orbit? Will reusable rockets be tax-incentivised while expendable ones face tariffs? Will companies launching on American or Indian rockets be penalised if those launches don’t meet the Commission’s green thresholds?
And here lies the most damning indictment of the EU Space Act: while Europe chooses red tape, its rivals will choose results.
The United States — home to the world’s most dynamic space sector — is unlikely to mirror Brussels’ regulatory zeal. Washington’s approach has been to enable private innovation, not police it into paralysis. SpaceX, Blue Origin, and hundreds of start-ups are thriving under a relatively light-touch regime, with minimal environmental mandates and a strong emphasis on commercial viability.
China, for its part, is forging ahead with a state-directed industrial strategy that prioritises capability over compliance. Beijing is building its own space station, deploying high-resolution surveillance satellites, and expanding its deep-space reach without wasting time on ESG metrics or cross-border harmonisation.
Russia, despite its declining capacity, retains a legacy launch infrastructure and continues operating with indifference to Western rules. None of these powers — not one — is preparing to hamstring its own ambitions with Brussels-style sustainability clauses or pan-continental cyber protocols.
The Commission, ever infatuated with regulation for regulation’s sake, seems to believe that setting global standards will compel others to follow. But the space race is not like data protection, where the market gravity of the EU can impose GDPR globally. Space is a field of raw competition, not jurisdictional consensus. The Americans won’t wait for Brussels. Nor will the Chinese. And the Russians least of all.
In attempting to lead by legislative fiat, the Commission risks doing the precise opposite: placing burdens on Europe’s own companies while allowing international competitors to streak ahead, unencumbered.
The EU insists that its rules will be “proportionate,” and that support will be offered to SMEs to help them comply. But experience with the Digital Services Act, the AI Act, and REACH chemicals legislation suggests otherwise. The cost of compliance will fall hardest on start-ups, which lack the legal departments and lobbying offices to navigate Brussels. Instead of boosting competitiveness, the Act is likely to consolidate the market in the hands of a few compliant giants — exactly the opposite of what Europe’s stagnant space industry needs.
The broader ambition — to establish a “Space Team Europe” and measure the EU’s competitiveness with a bespoke Commission-devised methodology — only confirms that Brussels sees this as a political project. A “vision,” not a launchpad. The Commission does not want to simply support Europe’s space sector; it wants to govern it, monitor it, and ultimately use it as another instrument of integration.
All of this might be tolerable if the EU’s actual space capacity were robust. But it isn’t. The Ariane 6 launcher has been delayed for years. Private investment in EU space tech lags dramatically behind the US and China. Even ESA, with its excellent scientists and engineers, is hamstrung by consensus-driven governance and underfunding. What Europe needs is more ambition, not more regulation. More competition, not more oversight.
The EU Space Act will not deliver lower launch costs, increased orbital access, or more rapid commercialisation. It will deliver paperwork. It may tidy up a fragmented regulatory landscape, but in doing so it risks burying Europe’s space future under a mound of well-intentioned but ultimately damaging bureaucracy.
The stars beckon — but while the rest of the world races for the heavens, Brussels is still rearranging the launchpad paperwork.
