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Good afternoon everyone,

A week ago I spoke to a room full of defence experts. I underlined how urgent it is that Europe gets serious about security and defence.

And that for too long, the EU has been producing papers instead of the capabilities we actually need to defend ourselves.

But I didn’t mention space.

And if some of you were watching and noticed this, I hope I can put you at ease now.

Because Space is just as contested a domain as land, air, sea and cyber;

Today it is even more complex than during the last decade of the Cold War.

We are already the targets of hybrid warfare. Including in space.

With systematic jamming of satellite navigation signals of GPS and Galileo. This causes major disruptions, it can force planes to land.

There are risks to our satellites, the ground infrastructure and our space industries from kinetic, electronic, and high-energy weapons. Espionage is a constant threat.

And there is now a spectre of nuclear weapons in orbit. This is why space threats have now reached the UN Security Council.

On the eve of its full-scale invasion in Ukraine, Russia tested an anti-satellite missile and launched a cyber-attack on a space system.

Given just how much we rely on services in space, we should expect nothing less.

Our space applications serve civilisation, from precision farming to the safety of our sporting events.

They serve our military missions on the ground, verify non-proliferation and help countries manage crises.

In modern warfare, space provides our eyes in the sky, enabling real-time surveillance and precision drone strikes.

Space-based Earth Observation has been a game-changer for the Ukrainian military to resist Russian attacks.

The previous head of the US Air Force recently predicted that by 2050, almost all military operations could take place in space.

The EU has to promote a safe and secure space environment and the peaceful use of outer space as a global commons.

At the same time, we have to get serious about our defence in space as well.

When we defend space, we are defending our economies. The security of our satellites is the security of our societies.

And it is in every EU Member State’s interest that we address the challenges together.

This is what we committed to in the EU’s Strategic Compass for Security and Defence, and the Space Strategy for Security and Defence.

It will be reflected also in the upcoming White Paper on the Future of Defence and in the Preparedness Strategy.

To defend ourselves in space, we are now developing a new European Space Shield.

There are three priorities here:

One, it is imperative that we have a near real-time awareness of who is doing what in space that could possibly pose a threat.

The EU already has classified annual analyses of the threat landscape. These are nourished by intelligence from Member States.

We also cooperate closely with national Space Commands who provide regular information on real-time threats in orbit.

We need to do this more regularly.

Second, how do we respond to an attack? There are three elements here, attribution, retaliation, and mutual defence.

For attribution – identifying the actor responsible for an attack - we can do this by increasing our understanding of malign actors and sharing intelligence.

On retaliation, we are looking into punitive options in the same vain as for cyber-attacks. 

This is very new itself.

In December last year we applied sanctions following hybrid attacks for the first time, including a covert unit within the Russian military intelligence agency that carried out cyber-attacks.

We need to think about how best we can apply this to space.

And on mutual defence, we have Article 42.7 of the Treaty on European Union.

This applies if a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory.

The other Member States have an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power.

This also could apply to an attack in space or against space infrastructure, for example.

The third priority is to work more closely together internally, bilaterally and multilaterally.

Within the EU, most of our Member States are using space services but aren’t operating them individually.

Some are much stronger than others. But no Member State can really afford to do any of this alone.

The EU needs a stronger security culture across governmental and private space actors. Information exchange here is key. This helps to build our defences and improve our systems.

Bilaterally, the US is the EU’s most important security partner on the ground. We must be allies in space too.

Space is clearly on the domestic US agenda. President Trump said he wants to plant the stars and stripes on Mars.

On security, we have to work together.

We both have strategic rivals, and we have to work in tandem to prevent a conflict in outer space.

Because conflict here would condemn our future by making vital orbits unusable for decades.  

We must also cooperate with other partners, including Australia, the Republic of Korea and Japan.

We already coordinate our diplomatic positions, exchange information about threats. We should also coordinate responses with these countries if the need arose.

On a multilateral level, the EU works with NATO and the UN.

NATO is the main guarantor for the security of most of our Member States. But it is the EU and not NATO that owns and operates space assets. So we must support each other.

This is what we are doing by working together on issues from the resilience of satellites to educating our workforce for the future of space.

And we are committed to working with NATO to respond to threats including in space. This is really new for both of us.

On the UN, it is a key forum for our space diplomacy.

It is the only international forum where globally-binding norms can be set.

And it is the forum where this diplomatic work should continue.

The EU’s Special Envoy for Space is leading this work, working not only with partners but with non-aligned states too.

The vast majority of non-aligned states are not space faring nations. Most of them depend on space as much as we do.

But they may not always realise the consequences of a collapse of space services.

It is essential for us all that space does not remain an unregulated domain.

This is why we will continue our work to set norms of responsible behaviour in space.

Dear colleagues,

Dear friends,

Ladies and gentlemen,

We’ve had the race to space.

And the race in space.

There are more than ten thousand active satellites in orbit. The traffic alone and risk of collisions are challenges in themselves.

And there is so much debris that we’re now talking about what could happen if we can’t launch anything anymore.

Astronauts on the International Space Station have already had to postpone spacewalks, and manoeuvre the station multiple times due to debris.

Now there is a race to dominate space.

In this era of competition, cooperation is more important than ever.

We must share intelligence among our Member States.

We have to work with like-minded partners to protect space services and ensure the infrastructure is resilient and protected.  

And we must champion the rules-based international order, together with our allies across the globe.

There is a real risk of space becoming the Wild West where only the toughest survive. We cannot let this happen.

Together we are always safer and stronger.

Thank you.

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