Europe just committed trillions to military spending while simultaneously sabotaging its own space future. This continental pivot represents the biggest defense transformation since WWII, but its combination with increasingly anti-SpaceX policies threatens to create a dangerous innovation gap that could reshape global power dynamics in orbit.
The European Union recently unveiled its Space Strategy for Security and Defense, marking its first comprehensive approach to protecting space assets and asserting autonomy in orbit. While seemingly progressive, this strategy emerges amid a massive military spending surge that’s draining resources from civilian space innovation exactly when Europe needs it most.
The Trillion-Euro Military Rebuild That Could Bankrupt Space Innovation
European nations are planning over €1 trillion in new defense spending through 2030. Germany alone committed €100 billion to military modernization following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Poland, France, and others following suit. This unprecedented spending surge comes with significant opportunity costs.
“The EU has identified space as a strategic domain,” states the European Commission’s strategy document, highlighting the “geopolitical context of increasing power competition.” Yet this military prioritization is happening while Europe’s civilian space sector struggles for funding.
The European Space Agency’s budget remains approximately one-third of NASA’s, despite serving a larger economic region. Meanwhile, Arianespace – Europe’s primary launch provider – continues facing production delays and cost overruns that make its rockets increasingly uncompetitive globally.
The Anti-SpaceX Policies Creating a Technology Gap
Rather than embracing competition to drive innovation, European policy has taken an increasingly protectionist stance against SpaceX and other American space companies. The EU Space Strategy emphasizes “strategic autonomy” – bureaucratic code for reducing dependence on non-European providers.
This policy approach manifests in several ways. European government missions almost exclusively fly on European rockets despite their higher costs and lower reliability. Meanwhile, complex regulatory barriers make it difficult for SpaceX to compete for commercial contracts within Europe despite offering dramatically lower launch prices.
The strategic disconnection is striking: while European militaries modernize to counter conventional threats, the space domain – increasingly crucial for both security and economic development – risks falling further behind due to protectionist policies that shield inefficient domestic providers from competition.
The Widening Innovation Gap
The consequences of this approach are already visible. While SpaceX launches Starship – a fully reusable rocket with revolutionary capabilities – Europe continues pouring resources into the Ariane 6, a conventional expendable rocket using decades-old technology principles. The innovation gap is widening at precisely the moment when space capabilities are becoming critical national security assets.
This dynamic creates a paradox: Europe’s military buildup aims to strengthen security, but by undermining space innovation, it potentially weakens the continent’s strategic position in the domain military planners increasingly view as decisive. The EU’s first space defense strategy acknowledges the need for “better threat response abilities” but offers few concrete solutions for closing the innovation gap.
The sustainability of Europe’s approach is questionable. As SpaceX and emerging Chinese providers drive launch costs ever lower, Europe’s insistence on maintaining independent but uncompetitive launch capabilities threatens to consume an unsustainable portion of its space budget – leaving less funding for satellites, scientific missions, and applications development.
Balancing Security and Innovation
Europe faces a critical choice: continue down a path of protectionism that shields its space industry from competition but stifles innovation, or embrace a more open approach that leverages commercial partnerships while maintaining essential sovereign capabilities.
The challenge isn’t purely budgetary. It’s a question of strategic vision. True space security requires not just defending existing assets but fostering the innovation ecosystem needed to maintain technological relevance. Military spending and space development shouldn’t be competing priorities but complementary elements of a comprehensive security strategy.
As Europe charts its course, the stakes extend beyond the continent. A vibrant European space sector provides valuable redundancy in global space capabilities and drives healthy competition. Its potential decline through misaligned policies would represent a loss not just for Europe but for the international space community.