Europe Seeks New Space Partnerships in Turbulent Trump Era

Europe’s counterpart to NASA is seeking new partnerships in space with a range of other countries as the continent bolsters its defenses and faces a more isolationist US under President Donald Trump.

The European Space Agency wants to initiate more projects with the likes of Japan, India, Australia and the United Arab Emirates, Director-General Josef Aschbacher said in an interview Tuesday at Bloomberg’s offices in London. In order to grow stronger, Europe may need to rely less on the US, he added.

“The global landscape has become much more volatile,” he said. “Europe needs to significantly reinforce its strength, its autonomy, and therefore space is one element in order to achieve that.”

As global security threats rise, Europe is stepping up military spending to bolster its arms industry and reduce dependence on the US. Space plays a crucial role in defense, given that many telecommunications and navigation capabilities used by militaries and security services rely on orbiting satellites.

The ESA has more than 300 active international agreements, and its largest cooperation is with the US. Despite some recent structural changes under the Trump administration, NASA has not notified ESA of any adjustments to its policy or cooperation agreements, Aschbacher said. Until a new NASA administrator is appointed, he isn’t expecting any major break from the past.

“NASA itself probably will undergo some changes; this is not for me to comment,” he said. “If there are changes, then of course we will need to see how we accommodate that.”

ESA’s programs are funded by its 23 member states and its annual budget of €7.7 billion is a fraction of US public spending on space. Last week, the agency successfully launched the first commercial mission of the Ariane 6 rocket, built by the Airbus SE-Safran SA joint venture ArianeGroup and designed to compete with the Falcon 9 from Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Airbus is in talks with Italy’s Leonardo SpA and France’s Thales to create a new European space and satellite business that can compete with SpaceX, Bloomberg News has reported. Aschbacher said he’s “supportive” of such a combination, on condition that other companies are able to compete with it.

Attracting private funds on the back of government spending was one of five priority domains that Aschbacher introduced at the agency. The amount of private capital flowing into Europe’s space sector has increased in recent years and has become significant, he said.

European governments’ plans to ramp up military spending have unleashed a rally in space and defense stocks that were previously shunned by many fund managers. Investors are pouring money into European equities at a rate not seen in almost decade, Bloomberg reported this month.

With assistance from Ruth David and Alberto Nardelli.

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