The director of the European Space Agency explains how Europe is both behind, and ahead, in space
A few months ago, the German foreign minister gave a talk in Berlin. In the time it took to give his remarks, he noted, several spy satellites from Russia and China would pass somewhere overhead. Around the same time, a plane carrying the head of the European Commission was forced to change plans due to interference — presumed to be a form of Russian hybrid warfare — to its navigational systems, which depend on networks of satellites circling the earth.
In a world where space is no longer just the final frontier for state-led exploration, but the backyard of the global economy, a playground for billionaires and a domain of geopolitical competition, Beat Balzli from the Swiss newspaper NZZ asks Josef Aschbacher, the director of the European Space Agency (the ESA), whether Europe is “naked” in space.
“Europe is not completely naked, but almost”, Aschbacher admits. There is no European space defence programme. A few countries – he lists Germany, France and Italy – have national satellite programmes. Aschbacher points to Europe’s Copernicus earth observation satellite networks and to the Galileo positioning network as civilian projects which gave some defence benefits. The One Web constellation is growing. But, Aschbacher says, it is nothing like what the United States or China have. When it comes to the rapid expansion of Space X, Aschbacher notes drily that America just has more money.
The NZZ reports that only five percent of the ESA budget goes on defence-related. Nonetheless, Aschbacher declares that something akin to a “Paragdigmenwechsel” – a paradigm shift – is underway. The next European Commission has earmarked 131 billion Euros for investment in defence and space over the next years. “How it will be divvied up isn’t clear”, Aschbacher says.
The director steers the NZZ away from the notion of space weapons, preferring the language of “resilience” and “defensive infrastructure”. A lot seems to be in flux. Aschbacher notes “discussions” with NATO, but no treaties. Mention is made of a Swiss project – Alpstar – which the ESA is collaborating with. Aschbacher brushes off any question of how this might affect Swiss neutrality. “You’d have to ask the Swiss”, he says.
Despite reprioritisation at NASA – the US space agency – Aschbacher points to ongoing European cooperation. When asked about the notion of Space X putting AI data centres in space, he simply says: “Yes, it will happen”.
He points to the ways in which Europe is either catching up or – in the wake of fears about over-reliance on the United States – taking a more strategic approach. “No one is going to replace Starlink”, Aschbacher says – but a European project, Iris 2 may supplement it. He notes the success of the Ariane 6 rocket programme, characterising it as slow to start but quick to ramp up. “European engineering is one of the best in the world”, he says: “it took longer, but it was better”. If Space X launches a hundred rockets in one year, and Europe launches ten, Europeans shouldn’t simply view the US as being ahead by a factor of ten – “we look to our own needs”, he says. Meanwhile, the American company Amazon is using European rockets as well as American ones. A European project for a reusable rocket – Ariane Next 2030 – is coming in the next few years.
But there is an undertow here. Aschbacher notes that Europe can be “incredibly innovative, incredibly good at new technologies” – but miss out on the really big commercial opportunities. There is something of a lament in the director of the ESA noting the ways in which the Copernicus project is world-leading in terms of understanding the planet. “We should praise Europe a little more”, he says.
The original interview was conducted by Beat Balzli in German and published as ‘Verteidigung im Weltall? “Europa steht night ganz nackt da, aber fast”’, in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on February 8, 2026.
It is available here.
NZZ is one of Switzerland’s leading newspapers. This interview was published in its Sunday edition.
Summary by CE
