Re-Arm Europe: Space Implications

An EU and European Defence Agency meeting. Credit: EU.

On March 19, the EU outlined its re-armament plan to mobilize €150 billion ($163.5 billion) in the short term and another €650 billion ($708.3 billion) in the medium term for collective defense projects.

The financing plan follows the disastrous Feb. 28 Trump-Zelensky meeting and the subsequent multi-day pause in U.S. intelligence support to Ukraine. During that time, the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency stopped supplying satellite imagery to Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also clashed with Poland Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski over Starlink, with Rubio telling him “say thank you because without Starlink Ukraine would have lost this war long ago,” and Musk calling him a “small man.” These events led to fears that the U.S. would also shut off Starlink in Ukraine, an outcome Musk and the U.S. government denied.

Europe has rarely been good at collective defense spending, opting instead for smaller, national budgets. That mentality is giving way as the Ukraine War and friction with the U.S. forced Europe to come together (or, in the case of Germany, significantly ramp domestic defense spending). In an accompanying white paper, the EU describes its Re-Arm plan as a “once-in-a-generation surge in European defence investment,” with the goal of replenishing Ukraine’s ordnance in the short term and filling EU critical capabilities gaps in the medium-to-long term (i.e., by 2030).

Where and how will this spending plan impact space? Curiously, the EU paper does not list space as one of its “seven priority areas.” The closest it gets is the seventh priority, “strategic enablers and critical infrastructure protection,” which covers the “use and protection of space and other secure communications assets” along with some capabilities partly enabled from space like ISR and maritime domain awareness.

Space gets its longest mention halfway through the paper under “long-term security guarantees,” which includes the following steps:

-          Advancing Ukraine’s request to join the EU’s Space Program, which would give the country access to EU positioning, navigation, and timing, communications, and Earth observation resources.

-          Funding the Ukrainian Armed Forces access to services from EU-based commercial providers to “help Ukraine to enhance its resilience by diversifying its sources of space-based services.”

-          Deepening cooperation with Ukraine on protecting strategic assets, especially space assets, from cyber threats (like the KA-SAT attack in 2022), and inviting Ukraine to participate in the EU relatively new Space Information Sharing Analysis Centre (ISAC).

Elsewhere, the paper highlights the European Investment Bank (EIB) plan to double its annual investment in defense-related funding to €2 billion for projects that include space.

Quilty’s Take:

Three years into the Russia-Ukraine War, Europe’s Re-Armament plan couldn’t come soon enough. If executed swaiftly, this plan should benefit European satcom providers, with Eutelsat OneWeb the clearest winner, followed by other members of the IRIS2 consortium like SES and Hispasat. The plan could also bolster domestic imagery providers, of which Europe already has several – Airbus, Iceye, Satlantis – to protect against future service interruptions. Lastly, cyber investments should benefit the entire space industry, but especially smaller firms that lack human resources dedicated to cyber, making them more vulnerable.

Link: https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/document/download/30b50d2c-49aa-4250-9ca6-27a0347cf009_en?filename=White%20Paper.pdf