“Europe’s space effort is split across too many national programmes” was the blunt diagnosis Andrius Kubilius, the EU Commissioner for Defence and Space made at the recent International Space Summit in Paris. Sovereignty was the word on everyone’s lips over the two-day event. But look past the rhetoric at what the summit produced, and a sharper story emerges. Europe is not choosing between sovereignty and partnership. It is learning to build the former via the latter.
Nearly 120 foreign delegations travelled to Paris for the summit. On its first day alone, the event produced close to 50 new partnerships and agreements, worth an estimated €20 billion, according to President Emmanuel Macron. That is not the arithmetic of a continent withdrawing into self-reliance. It is the arithmetic of a continent trying to secure its independence by multiplying the partners it can call on, some European, some not.
