Defence ministers for Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg pledged on Monday to strengthen their cooperation when it comes to space assets.
“Space capabilities are playing an ever-greater, ever-more vital and increasingly indispensable role in every form of military conflict,” Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defence minister, said at a press conference together alongside his three counterparts.
The four German-speaking countries want to enhance their cooperation from joint training to situational space awareness to prevent collisions, gather information in space, and protect each other’s satellite systems.
The EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is coordinating such matters for EU assets and with a mostly civilian tilt, but the four countries aim to boost the cooperation between their national military constellations.
The space domain has grown in importance for military purposes in recent years, especially when it comes to observation, communication and missile defence. It has been identified as a priority capability area for European defence by the European Commission.
Pistorius said that a recent visit to Ukraine once again showed him how important communication systems such as Starlink and modern drone technology are to hit Russia’s military logistics away from the frontlines.
Europe is currently heavily reliant on US space capabilities and is pushing to develop its own. Germany has set aside €35 billion to expand its own space assets, worrying some of its European partners that the country will use its defence funds to develop mainly national projects instead of common European ones.
Pistorius sought to dispel these concerns, telling reporters that “space capabilities are not something that nation states can achieve on their own – at least not if they are not superpowers”.
Klaudia Tanner, Austria’s defence minister, said at the same press conference that “partnerships and cross-border cooperation are incredibly important”, in particular for satellite-based navigation and satellite imagery reconnaissance.
Tanner told Euractiv in a separate interview that she expects Germany to play a major coordinating role in this new cooperation, and that she will also work closely with Luxembourg over the shared use of satellites.
Luxembourg prides itself on its broad expertise in satellites for communication and observation purposes.
“We are more than happy to make these competencies available to our partners,” Yuriko Backes, Luxembourg’s defence minister, said.
In addition to their future cooperation, the four ministers stressed the importance for Europe to gain sufficient autonomy to launch satellites on its own, especially mid-sized launch capabilities.
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