Toulouse: The EU Space Act is heading for trilogue talks in late 2026, and the Council, Parliament and Commission still disagree on cybersecurity, penalties and access for non-EU operators. The Commission tabled the proposal on 25 June 2025 to give Europe one rulebook for space safety, resilience and sustainability, and law firms tracking the file now describe three competing texts.

Member states back a common framework but want it lighter. Their compromise texts, circulated since December 2025 and again in March and May 2026, narrow the scope, shield national security activities and give governments more say over spaceports. Parliament has not yet adopted its first-reading position, according to an International Bar Association analysis, although its draft amendments surfaced in March 2026.

Cybersecurity splits the institutions most. The Commission wants the EU Space Act to act as the specific law for cyber risk, so operators comply with it first. The Council runs it in parallel with the NIS 2 Directive and limits the resilience chapter to operators below the NIS 2 ceilings. Parliament goes furthest, deleting that chapter and bringing space activities fully under NIS 2, as Gleiss Lutz explained.

Timing and penalties also differ. The Commission would apply the EU Space Act from 1 January 2030, while the Council and Parliament choose 36 months after entry into force. On fines, the Commission proposes a cap of double the profit gained or 2 percent of worldwide turnover, but Parliament removes the cap and gives the Commission wider discretion.

Under the EU Space Act, Parliament also wants faster licensing. It would halve review deadlines, set a six-month limit for national authorities and add deemed authorisation when an authority misses it. The Council keeps the Commission’s 12-month overall deadline and lets member states share authorisation tasks, and it also strips the EU Space Agency, EUSPA, of its role in proposing penalties.

Outside Europe, the biggest worry concerns market access. Under the Council draft, non-EU companies could serve the EU through a European legal entity, a national authorisation or a bilateral equivalence arrangement, according to Exterra analysis. No such arrangement with the United States exists today, and the draft offers no grandfathering for current contracts.

Small firms add another front. The Commission offers small enterprises transitional relief until the end of 2031 on environmental footprint duties, and Parliament would extend relief to small mid-caps with a 60-month transition. Industry will watch whether trilogue negotiators keep those facilitations once the larger issues come to a head.

The final EU Space Act may look quite different from the Commission’s original design. Governance, cybersecurity, national security and the limits of harmonisation will decide the outcome, and the talks planned for late 2026 will show how far the three institutions will bend.