November 8, 2026

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November 8, 2026

Newsletter

The European Post

Policy • Diplomacy • strategic insight

LATEST
Türkiye EU Report Row Clouds Customs Union Upgrade HopesWestern Balkans Roaming Talks Test Brussels Integration PledgeRail Ticketing Package Reaches Ministers With Gaps OpenMarket Integration Package Narrows As ESMA Powers ShrinkWolf Protection Rules Meet Sweden’s 72-Wolf Hunt TestPay Transparency Directive Deadline Passes With Only Four States ReadyHolding Cap Fight Shadows Digital Euro Law Ahead Of Council TalksCBAM Expansion Talks Test Whether Finished Goods Face Carbon LevyIsraeli Settlement Imports Ban Splits Commission And CouncilUnlimited Pesticide Approvals Face Public Rejection In PollMethane Import Rules Delayed A Year With Review ClauseSustainable Tourism Strategy Hands Europe A Toolbox For Crowded CitiesPharma Package Heads To Parliament After Council Backs Drug ReformRussia Sanctions Alignment Pulls Nine Partners Into Arms ListingsBrazil Farm Exports Jump 14.8 Percent Under EU Mercosur Trade DealNorth Korea IT Workers Draw Joint Western Sanctions ResponseDRC Sanctions Regime Gains Arms Ban And Peacekeeper ProtectionMade With Taiwan Pitch Tests Europe’s Economic Security AppetiteGeorgia Visa-Free Regime Faces January Review After Kallas WarningTeacher Shortages Put The EU Teachers Agenda To The TestTürkiye EU Report Row Clouds Customs Union Upgrade HopesWestern Balkans Roaming Talks Test Brussels Integration PledgeRail Ticketing Package Reaches Ministers With Gaps OpenMarket Integration Package Narrows As ESMA Powers ShrinkWolf Protection Rules Meet Sweden’s 72-Wolf Hunt TestPay Transparency Directive Deadline Passes With Only Four States ReadyHolding Cap Fight Shadows Digital Euro Law Ahead Of Council TalksCBAM Expansion Talks Test Whether Finished Goods Face Carbon LevyIsraeli Settlement Imports Ban Splits Commission And CouncilUnlimited Pesticide Approvals Face Public Rejection In PollMethane Import Rules Delayed A Year With Review ClauseSustainable Tourism Strategy Hands Europe A Toolbox For Crowded CitiesPharma Package Heads To Parliament After Council Backs Drug ReformRussia Sanctions Alignment Pulls Nine Partners Into Arms ListingsBrazil Farm Exports Jump 14.8 Percent Under EU Mercosur Trade DealNorth Korea IT Workers Draw Joint Western Sanctions ResponseDRC Sanctions Regime Gains Arms Ban And Peacekeeper ProtectionMade With Taiwan Pitch Tests Europe’s Economic Security AppetiteGeorgia Visa-Free Regime Faces January Review After Kallas WarningTeacher Shortages Put The EU Teachers Agenda To The Test

Member States Split the EU Space Act Over National Control

Virgilijus Alekna
Research Director, Space Policy

Brussels: The EU Space Act is still a bill without a final shape, and member states are using the Council compromise texts of 2025 and 2026 to pull it away from the Commission’s original design. The Commission tabled the proposal on 25 June 2025, and, according to legal analysis published in July 2026, Parliament had not yet adopted its first-reading position. The result is a Council-led rewrite in which national control matters more than harmonisation.

This research note maps where the Danish Presidency text of December 2025 and the Cyprus Presidency text of March 2026 diverge from the Commission draft, and why those differences decide who regulates European space activity.

What the EU Space Act is meant to do

The Commission wants one set of rules on safety, resilience and sustainability for operators that launch, operate or serve satellites in the Union. Today twelve or so member states run separate national space laws, so a satellite operator may face several licensing regimes for one constellation. A single regulation would replace that patchwork and give the internal market a common standard for debris, collision avoidance and cybersecurity.

That logic explains the political weight of the file. Space services now underpin navigation, farming data, border monitoring and secure communications, which makes the sector a question of economic security as well as industrial policy.

Where member states push back on the EU Space Act

The Council’s compromise drafts show a consistent pattern. Governments accept the goal but want less centralisation and more national discretion. The contested points include national security and defence activities, spaceports and launch sites, emergency powers, and the overlap with the NIS2 cybersecurity directive.

The security carve-out is the sharpest dispute. Several capitals argue that defence-related space assets belong outside a harmonised internal-market instrument. If that view prevails, the EU Space Act would regulate commercial operators while a large share of institutional and military activity stays under national law.

Spaceports raise a different concern. Launch sites sit on national territory, and the states that host them want the final say on licensing and on the conditions of operation.

The role of EUSPA and the NIS2 overlap

Another point of friction is the position of the EU Agency for the Space Programme. The Commission draft gave the agency a significant supervisory role, whereas the Council texts reduce it and leave more tasks with national competent authorities. That shift matters for operators, because a weaker central supervisor means that compliance practice could differ from one country to the next.

Cybersecurity creates the second overlap. Space operators in many sectors already fall under NIS2, so the compromise language tries to avoid double reporting duties. The open question is which regime prevails when the two disagree, and a clear answer would spare operators duplicate audits.

What this means for operators and investors

For European satellite manufacturers and launch start-ups, regulatory predictability is a commercial asset. A diluted EU Space Act would still deliver some common safety standards, but it would offer fewer guarantees of a single authorisation valid across the Union. Investors will read each Council compromise as a signal of how much of the single market the act can actually deliver.

Non-EU operators are watching as well. The act would apply to companies that offer services in the Union, so American and Asian providers have lobbied on the scope of its obligations, and a narrower text lowers their compliance burden.

What happens next

Three milestones will determine the outcome. The first is a Council general approach under the current presidency. The second is Parliament’s own first-reading position, which has so far been missing. The third is a trilogue, where MEPs and ministers will have to reconcile a harmonising Parliament with a decentralising Council.

The assessment of the legal analysts is that the final EU Space Act may differ markedly from the Commission’s original vision. Readers tracking space policy in 2026 should therefore watch the security carve-out and the EUSPA mandate, because those two choices will show whether Europe ends up with a genuine single rulebook or a coordinated set of national regimes.

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