Promoting our European Way of Life

DG DEFIS contributes to building resilience, safety and security in many forms:

1. The EU space infrastructures already play a major role in providing safety and security, but during the coming five years the safety and security related space-enabled services will increase as provided in the EU Space Programme Regulation. Such services play a role in a wide range of settings, for example in emergency and disaster management missions and operations of EEAS, protection of critical infrastructures, in personal safety (Ecall, Search and Rescue), border management, and law enforcement.  The security actors using such space-enabled services are equally diverse, and include both civilian and defence actors. The number of such safety and security related services is therefore an impotent result indicator.
2. As part of the Space Strategy for Europe the need was identified to ensure that Europe maintains autonomous, reliable, and cost effective access to space. Access to space underpins all space activities, and it is therefore essential to master the technology and operational capability to launch satellites. The proposed EU Space Programme Regulation reflects this need by promoting the procurement and aggregation of launching services and the development of space launch technologies and systems.
3. The new industrial strategy for Europe[1] calls for reinforcing Europe’s industrial and strategic autonomy. In the Recovery Package of May 2020[2] this is now mirrored in the new InvestEU[3] strategic European investment policy window, which can among others support aerospace and defence. The aerospace and defence ecosystem is hard-hit by the crisis, not least because Member States budgetary situation may not allow for major investments needed in the coming years. The industrial ecosystem, and the objective of reinforced strategic autonomy both benefit from full chain EU level support to dual-use critical technologies, and from R&D (Horizon 2020/Horizon Europe) at component level to the implementation of complex space systems. Other policies, such as screening of Foreign Direct Investment, and the systematic mapping of industrial supply chains are also instrumental in enhancing strategic autonomy.
4. DG DEFIS is coordinating, jointly with EEAS, the Commission policies and initiatives relevant to the EU response to hybrid threats, and works with DG HOME and DG CNECT on more general security policies, such as the Security Union, and Cyber Security.
5. DG DEFIS coordinates, in close cooperation with DG MOVE, the implementation of the Action Plan on military mobility, which is another classical dual-use domain.
6. Europe has the ambition to invest in the development of the technology for a novel integrated, secure and autonomous European space connectivity initiative. It would be built on the basis of the GOVSATCOM component of the EU Space Programme, complementing it with new space segment development with advanced capability and integrated innovative quantum technology built through the EuroQCI initiative.
7. A number of activities linked to education and skills, in particular on STEM, are being pursued in the frame of the Blueprint for Sectoral Cooperation on Skills.