“Reaching Solutions?”

Published in June 2025, the draft European Union Space Act (“2025 draft EUSA”) seeks to harmonise safety, resilience and sustainability rules for space activities and to reduce regulatory fragmentation in the internal market, thereby enhancing the competitiveness of the EU space sector and facilitating the goal of EU autonomy in space.

While the goal was generally applauded, the 2025 draft EUSA was, and still is, confronted with significant criticism from stakeholders. The criticism focuses on competence, procedure, scope, proportionality, third-country access and the allocation of functions between Member States, EUSPA, ESA and the Commission.

Against this background, the Danish Presidency of the Council of the European Union published a “Compromise Text” in December 2025, and the Cypriot Presidency followed up in March 2026 with a revised “Compromise Text 2” (together, the “Compromise Texts”). The latter was reportedly informally aligned with the EU Commission and some Member States. On the side of the European Parliament, the ITRE Committee (3 March 2026, “ITRE Report”), the IMCO Committee (25 March 2026), and the ENVI Committee (March 2026) also issued proposals for significant amendments. In addition, the Renew Europe group published a comprehensive set of amendments on 14 April 2026 (“Renew Amendments”), proposing a fundamental restructuring of the governance architecture while involving ESA more as a cooperation partner than the 2025 draft EUSA envisaged. Further papers not yet officially published and views from other political groups of the European Parliament are also being discussed.

In order to determine the status of this somewhat confusing situation, the Presidency of the Council of the European Union published a “Progress Report” dated 8 May 2026 (the “Council Progress Report”), with the aim of clarifying the status of positions.

The 2025 draft EUSA and the state of play in a nutshell:

The Big Picture – Primary Goals of the 2025 draft EUSA (EUSA Goals) 

• ensure that space activities are carried out in a safe, resilient and sustainable way (“Activity Goal”)

• strengthen the competitiveness of the EU space industry (“Strategic Goal”) by reducing legal fragmentation and providing a regulatory level playing field within the internal market

Main Characteristics of the 2025 draft EUSA

• directly binding regulation with harmonised safety, resilience, and sustainability requirements; no general implementation leeway for the Member States within the scope of the 2025 draft EUSA

• responsibility at Member State level, while responsibility for registration and the grant of an e-certificate lies at EU level

• internal level playing field through harmonised authorisation following a one-stop-shop objective across the EU

• provision of stringent and, in part, micro-level prescriptive requirements, together with even more detailed technical annexes and further delegated acts still to come

• (limited) light-touch regimes and capacity-building measures to counter the expected economic burdens arising from the 2025 draft EUSA

Strategic Goal of the EUSA – Achieving Competitiveness 

• ensure a level playing field for the internal market, aiming to avoid regulatory fragmentation and forum shopping

• free movement within the EU, aiming to achieve a one-stop-shop principle as regards authorisation

• increased legal certainty for technological development and financing 

• facilitation of innovation by providing legal certainty and applying the one-stop-shop principle

• application also to non-EU stakeholders aiming to provide services for the internal market

Stakeholder Reactions – Areas of Published Concerns and Criticism 

• Overall EU competence, regarding both the EU’s overall competence to harmonise space regulation and the extensive use of competence grants for further regulation through insufficiently checked delegated acts

• Achievement of strategic goals, in particular regarding the free movement / one-stop-shop goal, including various potential obstacles, and the ultimate goal of enhancing competitiveness

• Procedural concerns because of uncertainties, the complexity and length of the procedures, the risk of duplicative elements, the requirement for numerous parallel authorisations, and the overall administrative burden

• Scope, proposing, inter alia, to leave resilience outside the scope (advocating the application of existing NIS2 and CER regimes to cover all space operations), questioning the need to include binding environmental sustainability provisions instead of using regulatory sandboxes, and regarding the inclusion of stringent light-pollution limitations

• Application to non-EU stakeholders, in particular regarding various loopholes or overreaching effects, a number of uncertainties regarding the application to non-EU stakeholders, and the risk of a cut-off from critical supply chains

• National security derogation, seen as a danger to the overall application of the EUSA because of the gaps and loopholes created by the existing wording

• Technical drafting deficiencies, regarding the actual wording, the structure, the ambiguity of material definitions, and the partly duplicative character of the text

• The practical application of the principle of proportionality is also heavily criticised, mainly because of the lack of robust risk-calibrated regulation, while others reject size-based proportionality.

Making it Better – Main Recommendations from Stakeholders

The overarching themes of the recommendations voiced are:

• simplification is necessary, and procedural timelines should be limited
• scale down requirements in proportion to risk rather than according to numbers or other formal KPIs
• review and restrict the scope of binding requirements, in particular for sustainability on Earth, and also by taking advantage of existing regimes (NIS2 – resilience)
• take advantage of already existing technical standards and solutions followed by the space industry and avoid creating artificial new standards that are not aligned
• provide more concrete facilitation and cost-covering grants to counter the burden imposed on stakeholders and Member States
• work with objectives and goal setting rather than binding prescribed solutions
• generally, review the technique, definitions, and structure to avoid duplications, loopholes, and logical errors and to make the draft a better, more technically robust document
• provide regulatory sandboxes to foster innovation where appropriate
• work with non-EU states as partners to achieve mutual recognition and avoid additional challenges for supply chains that would counter the strategic goals
• in particular, regard ESA as a more knowledgeable partner in certain areas and not as an entity to be regulated.

Reaction of the Compromise and Other Texts to Stakeholder Concerns

The various papers and alternative proposals address the main concerns in diverse and very different ways:

• simplification proposals range from minor tweaks and significant changes to the definition section to concentrating almost all responsibilities at EU level, away from Member States
• scope adjustments propose mainly deleting the resilience part from the EUSA and shifting it to existing NIS2 legislation
• proportionality remains heavily contested, with solutions ranging from wider easements and lighter regimes to the deletion of all purely size-based easements
• non-EU application is still under discussion, ranging from an even tighter regime to significant exemptions and lighter procedures to protect supply chains and existing cooperation arrangements.

In sum, while there has been some movement towards alignment, for instance by shifting parts of the resilience requirements to general NIS2 legislation, most other aspects flagged as problematic by stakeholders are still being discussed in very diverse ways. What is clear is that the discussion, which during most of 2025 and at the beginning of 2026 was primarily technical and legal, now shows clear signs of increasingly becoming a debate on compromise lines between the political groups of the European Parliament.

The Council Progress Report confirms the same picture from the Council side.

In detail: 

I. The 2025 draft EUSA

Published on 25 June 2025, the draft EUSA aims to create a single market for space by harmonising authorisation requirements across Member States, establishing a central registration system (URSO), and applying a registration regime to third-country operators serving the EU internal market.

1. Starting Point

In general, according to the draft EUSA, authorisation remains at Member State level (12-month timeline), with Member States choosing between national technical bodies, EUSPA, or international organisations for assessment. Once authorised by the Member States, an operator would receive an e-certificate from EUSPA valid for the entire EU. Third-country operators may benefit from equivalence decisions (Art. 16) or bilateral agreements (Art. 111). If not, they must follow a registration procedure submitted to the EC and assessed by EUSPA. Derogations from EUSA compliance for third-country launch operators are also possible.

If the EUSA were to achieve its goals, it would deliver genuine free movement of space activities across the EU, promote sustainable investment through a clearer risk framework for insurers and investors, provide legal certainty for emerging ISOS technologies, and support competitiveness through capacity-building measures. Whether it can actually deliver on these goals in its current form is the central question.

2. Achievable Goals 

Based on the feedback and the direction of the 2025 draft EUSA, several aspects indicate how the EUSA could contribute positively to the broader space ecosystem:

Free movement of space activities: The adoption of an EUSA would be beneficial for Union space operators if it established a true single authorisation and central registration procedure that eliminated the burden on operators currently required to seek authorisation and licensing from different jurisdictions for a single mission. This multiplicity of authorisations creates operational, administrative, and economic burdens. In this respect, less administrative duplication would be better.

Promotion of sustainable investment: The EUSA promotes safe, resilient, and sustainable space operations that would positively affect sustainable investment and growth in the space sector. As the LEO environment becomes increasingly congested, and therefore riskier to operate in, it is becoming difficult, for instance, to quantify risks for space insurers and investors. Safe, resilient, and sustainable space activities ensured through the draft EUSA would help create an EU space market that may be more attractive to investors.

Promotion of cutting-edge technologies: At the moment, ISOS activities are still at an early stage, and only a few examples of such activities have been authorised so far. However, as the technology matures, one of the main obstacles to its development has been identified as the lack of clear governance. Although ISOS missions have been authorised by the US and the UK, there are still very few national space laws that address ISOS within their jurisdiction. By addressing the authorisation and technical requirements for conducting these activities, the EUSA would help provide clarity, safety, and security for ISOS operations and therefore support the development of ISOS technologies within the EU market.

Capacity-building measures supporting the development of cybersecurity solutions for the space sector, the EU space label, and ISOS technologies would help support growth and innovation in the EU space sector.

II. Stakeholder Reactions 

1. EU Space Operators’ Comments on the EUSA

Based on the open consultation (closed 7 November 2025), stakeholder concerns include:

• the EU’s overall competence to harmonise space and the wide delegation of powers via implementing acts 

• procedural complexity (lengthy timelines, duplicative elements, unclear multi-country allocation)

• fundamental questions about the EUSA’s scope (resilience/NIS2 overlap, binding sustainability provisions, light pollution)

• the application to non-EU stakeholders, national security derogation loopholes and technical drafting deficiencies

• the contested principle of proportionality (risk-based versus size-based regulation) 

• many stakeholders question whether the 2025 draft EUSA can actually achieve a level playing field in the internal market or whether it will achieve its strategic goals of strengthening competitiveness.

The Council Progress Report confirms that these concerns had become core Council negotiating points. Although delegations considered the Presidency compromise text to be moving in the right direction by reducing complexity and simplifying the text, Member States continued to identify open issues on scope and dual-use exemptions, governance allocation, duplication with national procedures and third-country equivalence. The key areas of criticism may be described as follows:

1. Language and scope: Key definitions (space services, space activities, operation, control, primary provider of space-based data) lack clarity. Subsidiaries and activities such as GSSaaS, hosted payloads, and orbital transfer vehicles create scope uncertainty. The EUSA is further criticised for failing to address supply-chain resilience as a sovereignty issue.

2. Governance and authorisation: The governance structure is viewed as overly complex, with unclear roles between national authorities, EUSPA, and ESA. The authorisation process is considered too lengthy (12 months), and the conditions for constellation blanket authorisations are viewed as overly strict. Supervisory inspection powers are considered excessive.

3. Proportionality and lighter regimes: Important EU operators oppose derogations for third-country operators and call for equal treatment irrespective of origin. Controversially, many also oppose size-based exemptions for small companies, arguing that regulatory relief should depend on the mission’s risk profile rather than the operator’s size. Somewhat surprisingly, this argument is not made with respect to exemptions for research and education missions.

4. Technical requirements and safety: Requirements are criticised as overly prescriptive and not technology-neutral. Orbit selection and light pollution provisions (magnitude 7 threshold) are deemed unrealistic. The mega/giga constellation distinction lacks scientific basis, and collision risk is not correlated with the number of satellites in a constellation.

5. Resilience and sustainability: Operators point to duplication with NIS2, CER, and the Cyber Resilience Act and argue that adding another resilience layer under the EUSA is unnecessarily burdensome. On sustainability, operators are concerned about duplicating existing ESA standards (LCA methodologies, PEFR4Space) and warn that EF calculation costs will fall heavily on industry. In addition, the direct supply chain requirements are seen as unrealistic in certain cases.

6. Further notable points raised by stakeholders include:

• the need for post-implementation reassessment with additional R&D support 

• proposals to reduce the authorisation timeline to two weeks

• the call for EEA/ESA countries not to be treated as third countries 

• risk-based and phased compliance requirements, and 

• separation of launch, spacecraft, and data services regulation into distinct frameworks.

2. Third-country Space Operators’ Comments on the EUSA 

Third-country space operators generally welcome harmonisation but heavily criticise the 2025 draft EUSA’s extraterritorial reach, complexity, and barriers to market access. Key concerns are:

• The extraterritorial effect and scope of application to non-EU stakeholders are heavily criticised. The broad interpretation of “operation” and “control” risks extending EU jurisdiction in ways that conflict with national frameworks (e.g., ITAR). Inspection powers applied to third-country entities are considered infeasible, and the supervisory structure between Member States, EUSPA, and the Commission needs clearer delineation.

• The registration procedure is seen as duplicative and discriminatory without equivalence decisions or international agreements. Technical requirements are viewed as overly prescriptive (especially light pollution thresholds), and the economic impact of EF calculation is highlighted. Long transition periods and future implementing acts create mission planning uncertainty.

• Additionally, third-country operators flag that ISOS obligations should clarify that a servicer does not become the operator of the client spacecraft, that the EUSA fails to distinguish between crewed and uncrewed systems, and that a non-prescriptive framework similar to the U.S. approach would be preferable.

III. Proposals for New Versions of the EUSA 

The Council Progress Report proposes to account for this criticism in certain areas.

The ITRE Report (rapporteur Donazzan, ECR; 3 March 2026) simplifies within the existing architecture. The Compromise Texts (Danish December 2025, Cypriot March 2026) introduce EU-wide certification while preserving Member State authorisation. The Renew Amendments (Grudler, Løkkegaard, Stürgkh, Hojsík, Friis; 14 April 2026) propose a fundamental restructuring. 

The following is a thematic comparison:

Governance and authorisation: The ITRE Report accelerates timelines (5 working days for completeness, 3 months for assessment, 6 months for decision) and simplifies supervision. The Compromise Text replaces national authorisation with EU-wide EUSA certification granted by the Member State of establishment but valid EU-wide. The Renew Amendments go furthest: EUSPA becomes the sole authorisation-issuing authority with a 3-month timeline, including liability, insurance, and professional competence examination, while ESA becomes the sole qualified technical body under a binding arrangement obligation.

Scope and complexity: All three proposals significantly reduce complexity. The ITRE Report and Compromise Text delete the Union Space Labelling system, mega/giga constellation classifications, supply chain engagement, and numerous definitions. The Compromise Texts additionally expand exemptions (e.g., beyond graveyard orbit). Although the Renew Amendments keep the Labelling system, mega constellations, and supply chain engagement, they achieve simplification by deleting sub-definitions that do not have independent legal weight (e.g., mission control centre).

Resilience and NIS2: The ITRE Report materially deletes resilience pillar elements. The Compromise Texts largely remove the pillar, relying on the expanded NIS2 scope. The Renew Amendments complete this trajectory: the pillar is fully removed, the lex specialis character is abandoned, and NIS2 is amended to explicitly include all space operators. Only complementary requirements for mission-critical functions (telecommand integrity, ground-segment security) are retained.

Technical requirements: The Compromise Texts simplify safety rules and evolve brightness requirements into broader minimisation obligations. The Renew Amendments replace the fixed magnitude 7 threshold with a best-efforts obligation, delete the giga-constellation category, and introduce a two-route compliance architecture: either compliance with the requirements in the EUSA or compliance with harmonised standards (presumption of conformity), supported by an alternative safety case.

Proportionality and easements: The proposals diverge sharply in this area. The ITRE Report expands lighter regimes to a broader range of larger companies. The Compromise Texts exempt SMEs, small mid-caps, and research institutions, particularly for IOD/IOV. The Renew Amendments take the opposite approach: the size-based simplified risk management category is deleted; requirements apply uniformly based on mission risk, not operator size.

Equivalence and third-country access: The ITRE Report refines the equivalence mechanism (partial/full, 5-year validity, 3-year review). The Renew Amendments delete the mechanism entirely (Art. 105): all operators face the same URSA registration and technical assessment; recognition of third-country rules requires international agreements with reciprocal market access.

Economic burden: The ITRE Report introduces targeted financial and procedural support measures. The Compromise Texts remove supply chain engagement requirements, EF obligations, and certification-related administrative steps. The Renew Amendments achieve burden reduction primarily through structural simplification – one authority, one procedure, one technical body – rather than through exemptions.

Capacity building: The ITRE Report and the Compromise Text extend capacity-building measures to SMEs, small mid-caps, and research and education institutions to provide technological, technical, and management support, guidance materials, methodologies, and best practices to achieve compliance.

The Council Progress Report records that delegations saw simplification progress but treated four clusters as open: scope and dual-use exemptions, governance and responsibility allocation, duplication risks, and third-country access/equivalence. The Council Progress Report therefore confirms that the Council had not reached a settled position but was carrying the file forward for further examination.

The revision proposals in the Council Progress Report address many concerns. Room for further refinement, and therefore for compromise, remains. Solutions could include:

• Shortened authorisation process: The process should be tailored to operational complexity; less complex operations could be handled in significantly less than six months.

• Foster innovation: Move from very prescriptive rules to outcome-based requirements to allow industry to find its own technical solutions to achieve the relevant goals.

• Align with international standards: A proposed two-route compliance model (harmonised standards or alternative safety case) points in the right direction. Delegated acts should involve industry at the development stage.

• Incentive-based approach where appropriate: Certain requirements should initially remain non-binding, with sandbox regimes and public procurement incentives (EU Space Label) encouraging voluntary compliance before mandatory application. This is a solution proposed by HEUKING from the very beginning and throughout the discussions.

• Risk-based proportionality: Requirements should be calibrated both to the mission’s risk profile (low/standard/high risk) and to operators’ size.

• Administrative cost coverage: It remains unclear whether compliance costs for Member States and EUSPA will be covered by existing budgets. Dedicated funding is needed.

• Direct funding support: Capacity-building should include direct funding for SMEs, research institutions, and medium-sized companies to implement technical requirements.

IV. Conclusion 

The 2025 draft EUSA, if properly calibrated, could harmonise fragmented national frameworks and promote safety, resilience, and sustainability as core principles. It can be assumed that all amendment proposals are united in this aim. The proposals, however, differ significantly on how to reach those goals and what priorities to set.

The ITRE Report and the Compromise Texts introduce important simplifications. The Renew Amendments go even a step further with a genuinely centralised governance model centred on EUSPA, a clearer reduction of NIS2 duplication, and the rejection of size-based easements in favour of risk-based regulation.

Nevertheless, it remains unclear how in particular the Renew approach would foster innovation or growth in the space sector. Centralisation may increase coherence, but it also risks cementing the role of established actors and favouring established space-faring nations. Limiting exemptions for SMEs and research and educational institutions could therefore weaken precisely the actors that often drive experimentation, spin-offs, and broader sectoral development. A risk-based approach is important, but it should not be applied in a way that removes all size-sensitive relief where that relief is necessary to preserve market entry and genuine competition.

Accordingly, the Council Progress Report reinforces that the decisive test for the EUSA should be whether the final text delivers genuine simplification rather than merely reallocating tasks between Member States, EUSPA, ESA and the Commission. A one-stop-shop will only strengthen competitiveness if operators face shorter, predictable procedures and if overlapping national and Union layers are avoided. As long as the EUSA does not also centralise national security, dual-use matters and liability regimes at EU level (which would be against the cornerstones of the EU), any talk about a one-stop-shop will remain relative and any such claim is overstated.

Second, proportionality should not be treated as a binary choice between mission-risk criteria and size-sensitive relief. The final architecture should combine risk-calibrated technical obligations with targeted relief and funding for SMEs, research institutions and mid-sized operators where compliance costs would otherwise deter market entry.

Third, the external dimension should remain integral to the competitiveness analysis. The EU can pursue high safety, resilience and sustainability standards, but it should do so through alignment with existing technical standards, meaningful use of ESA expertise and workable routes for mutual recognition or international agreements, so that supply chains and established cooperation models are not unnecessarily disrupted.

About the Co-Author

Dr. Merve Erdem Burger

Co-founder of Swiss Space Law Forum, independent space law consultant 

Dr. Merve Erdem Burger currently runs her independent space law & policy consultancy in Switzerland and Türkiye, and provides specialized training in space law for academic institutions and government agencies. Before establishing her consultancy, she completed her post-doctoral research at the Chair of Public International Law, Faculty of Law, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, where she also taught International Space Law in the Master of Law program.