{"id":465820,"date":"2026-09-23T12:49:45","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T10:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/09\/23\/spazio-kubilius-lue-non-dipenda-dai-razzi-stranieri-e-in-gioco-il-suo-futuro\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T14:19:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T12:19:33","slug":"space-kubilius-the-eu-must-not-be-dependent-on-foreign-rockets-our-future-is-at-stake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/09\/23\/space-kubilius-the-eu-must-not-be-dependent-on-foreign-rockets-our-future-is-at-stake\/","title":{"rendered":"Space, Kubilius: The EU “must not be dependent on foreign rockets; our future is at stake”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 Trying to compete with the United States, China and Russia in the space race? Yes, but without “rockets” there is no “access to space”, and without access to space “there is no future.” Above all, the EU \u201cmust not be dependent on foreign rockets,” as its “long-term future is at stake.\u201d This was the reality check<\/a> delivered by the European Commissioner for Defence, Andrius Kubilius<\/strong>, speaking from the podium at the second EU conference on access to space, held today (23 September) in Paris. The Lithuanian official explained that \u201cin the next ten years, an expected 50,000 satellites will be launched into space worldwide. For defence. For the economy. For mega constellations.\u201d He added that until 2035, “an exponential increase in European satellites \u2013 compared to the 2016 \u2013 2024 period. National defence satellites from about 20 to nearly 300, government satellites: from nearly 70 to nearly 630. Commercial satellites: from around 1000 satellites will nearly double,\u201d Kubilius explained. This means that \u201cfrom a European side, launch demand will multiply by nearly six times.\u201d  For the EU alone “we will need 62 launches by 2034<\/strong>\u201d through Galileo and Copernicus \u2013 the global satellite navigation system and the EU\u2019s Earth observation programme, respectively,  \u201c14 launches in 2031 alone<\/strong>\u201d by Ariane \u2013 a series of civil launch vehicles built and designed by the Arianespace consortium on behalf of the European Space Agency \u2013 and \u201c8 launches in 2030 alone\u201d by Vega rockets<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

As regards the number of launches, the European Union is \u201ccurrently in fourth place\u201d, behind \u201cthe United States, China, and even Russia.<\/strong>\u201d This lag persists \u201ceven from a technological point of view,, the Commissioner said. In terms of public investment in the space sector, \u201cthe European Space Agency\u2019s report on the space economy\u201d shows that \u201cthe United States leads the way with 60 per cent of global spending, followed by China with 15 per cent and Europe with 11 per cent.\u201d As for private investment, \u201cthe picture is the same.\u201d Therefore, the Commissioner acknowledged and warned: \u201cAs Europe as a whole, we are only in third place in this ranking.\u201d <\/p>\n

The lack of individual Member States \u201cfrom this list\u201d highlights \u201cour main obstacle: division,\u201d he noted. To address this shortcoming, his proposal calls for \u201csubstantial funding for space<\/strong>.\u201d In particular, Kubilius \u201cwelcomed the growing national investment by Member States in the space sector\u201d and explained that the EU is \u201cencouraging more private investment. After the success of the Cassini seed fund for space, we will launch Cassini 2.0. And we’re promoting access to risk finance together with the European Investment Bank,\u201d he explained. The key, therefore, lies in \u201cgreater access to investment, from debt to venture capital,\u201d but \u201cEuropean money\u201d is also needed, such as the EU\u2019s multiannual budget for the seven years 2028\u20132034. \u201cLast year we proposed a five-fold increase for defence and Space for the next multi-annual EU budget,\u201d he noted. <\/p>\n

The EU must bridge the gap. In this regard, Kubilius announced that he will embark on a tour of Europe to engage in \u201croundtables and bilaterally. To discuss the road ahead.\u201d The aim is to \u201cpresent an action plan on European access to space<\/strong>\u201d by next year, while seeking to encourage a \u201cbroad public debate on how to speed up Europe’s access to space\u201d with \u201call stakeholders sitting round the table,\u201d he concluded. But the aim is twofold and also relates to European autonomy. “We must not be dependent on foreign rockets<\/strong>,” he said “Our long-term future is at stake: our ability to shape the space economy, to lead in the space economy. Our long-term European competitiveness. Our strategic sovereignty and independence,\u201c <\/strong>he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the second conference on access to space, held in Paris, the European Commissioner for Defence stressed the need for substantial funding and for the EU to carry out 62 launches by 2034<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7908,"featured_media":465799,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[30809],"tags":[25871,27336,29924,25916,26512,35438,35217,26167,26326],"class_list":["post-465820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-security","tag-andrius-kubilius-en","tag-cina-en","tag-copernicus-and","tag-federazione-russa","tag-palazzo-berlaymont","tag-space-en","tag-states-united-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":465821,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465820\/revisions\/465821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}