Safety, resilience and sustainability of space activities have become priorities for the European Commission, as affirmed by President von der Leyen in September 2024. In this context, the European Commission launched a targeted stakeholder consultation on EU legislative initiative (EU Space Law). Several policy options were proposed, each of them with a degree of integration that varies, and significant differences in terms of legal implications for the private and public actors involved.

This paper focuses on the different options proposed on sustainable Space Policy and its legal framework, based on a matrix organized around the intersection of different approaches: on the one hand, moving from soft law to hard law, and their possible complementarity; on the other hand, moving from national coordination to supranational integration, and its possible impact on the global environment.

As a matter of fact, the concepts of safety, resilience and sustainability require a global approach by nature, because they deal with issues that cannot be solved locally, even more so with regards to space activities. Legislative initiatives at the regional level are beneficial and necessary but cannot replace the ultimate objective of a consensus among space powers. Would the adoption of an EU Space Law contribute to reinforce the EU’s role as an international, influent, actor? It will likely depend on the will of the EU, and its Member States, to continue to seek dialogue at the multilateral level, even when it appears to be sluggish, if not dead-end.

Identification of key actors in the governance of European Union space policy highlights the complexity of the governance architecture in this domain. The context of the commercialisation of space, involving non-state actors; the ongoing securitisation of space and concomitant processes of militarisation, directing attention to security and defence policy dimensions of EU space policy are factors affecting the evolution of this architecture. The EU’s External Action Service (EEAS) was established by the Treaty of Lisbon (2007) and formally launched in 2011. It is the EU’s diplomatic service. To date, attention on the EEAS has been in relation to, for example, the creation of new European administrative space, a consideration of the EEAS role and activities in the space domain in the literature may be described as fleeting. However, the role of the EEAS in space is expanding. Recent developments in the EEAS include the creation of a dedicated role of Special Envoy for Space (SES) and the release by the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of a Communication, jointly with the European Commission, the EU space strategy for security and defence (JOIN (2023) 9). This paper charts key features of the evolving EEAS role in the development of European Union space policy.

Space and security have gained increasing importance at the European Union level in recent years, reflected in Regulation (EU) 2021/696 (Space Regulation) and related legislative acts. The Space Regulation establishes the new EU Space Programme and the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) and revolutionises its governance and components. Mainly, it profoundly affects internal and external relations in European space governance. It combines the Union’s space activities until 2021 in one extensive space programme, transforming former space initiatives into proper security components. It also delves the way for a new EU approach to security. This research explores these developments, part of a broader framework of redefinition of the EU’s position in the European and international space sector and the main drivers that led to a paradigm shift in many areas of the EU’s approach to space activities.

In contrast to recent trends for more European militarisation, Telò emphasised Europe as a civilian power (see also Duchêne, 1972, Maull, 1990, Majone, 2009, Sweeney, 2022). Telò’s definition is very perceptive here: “A political entity can be termed a civilian power not only if it does not intend, but also if it is not able, for various historical or structural reasons, to become a classic politico-military power and pursues its international peaceful objectives using other methods.” (Telò, 2006: 51). Telò points out that contrary to the negative perspective of lacking military capabilities, Europe must be seen as a very effective and indeed powerful international actor, because it has shown that it is well able to turn to good account its well-versed abilities as a civilian power (Telò, 2006: 57, see also Hoerber, Bohas, Valdemarin, 2023). Again, in contrast to the US perspective of using its military as a direct power tool, the EU has agreed to increased military capabilities under the Petersberg tasks only as a means of making its civilian engagement more credible; that is, military intervention as a possibility of last resort, the existence of which might make opponents more susceptible to preceding peaceful exercise of influence (Telò, 2006: 75). That leads to the question whether Europe can go a third way with its space policy and the increasing militarization of space.