Von der Leyen to deliver first dedicated space speech as satellite threats mount

Ursula von der Leyen will stand at the podium of the Grand Palais on September 10 and do something no Commission president has done before: deliver a speech devoted entirely to space policy. The occasion is the International Space Summit convened by Emmanuel Macron, a two-day gathering of more than 120 national delegations alongside space agencies, industry executives, scientists and military officials. But the symbolism of a standalone address tells its own story. After years of treating space as a subsidiary file, managed through the EU's Galileo and Copernicus programmes, overseen by a directorate-general that also handles defence industry, the Commission is signalling that orbital security has moved to the centre of European strategic thinking.

First dedicated space speech signals strategic shift

The last time a Commission president spoke at length about space was in passing, folded into broader addresses on industrial policy or digital sovereignty. Von der Leyen's decision to carve out a dedicated slot reflects a calculation that the security environment has changed faster than the EU's institutional architecture. Russian hybrid operations targeting satellite infrastructure, GPS jamming and spoofing across the Baltic region, cyber intrusions against ground stations, the demonstrated capability to destroy satellites from the ground, have turned what was once a civilian policy domain into a front line. The Commission's forthcoming European Space Shield, an action plan expected to be unveiled alongside or shortly after the speech, is the first attempt to give the EU a coherent doctrine for protecting its orbital assets.

The shift did not happen overnight. When von der Leyen took office in 2019, space was framed primarily as an economic enabler: the Galileo constellation delivering positioning services, Copernicus providing earth observation data, the proposed IRIS² constellation promising secure connectivity. The 2021 Russian anti-satellite test, which created a debris field threatening the International Space Station, was a warning. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made the warning concrete. Ukrainian forces relied on commercial satellite imagery and Starlink terminals for command and control; Russian electronic warfare units targeted GPS signals across the theatre. European capitals watched and took notes.

European Space Shield and the security imperative

Details of the European Space Shield remain scarce, the Commission has briefed only in broad terms, but the outline is clear. The plan will address three layers: resilience of space systems themselves, including hardening satellites against electronic attack and designing constellations that can survive the loss of individual nodes; protection of ground infrastructure, from control centres to launch facilities; and a framework for attribution and response when attacks occur. The last element is the most politically delicate. The EU has no standing military space command, no agreed threshold for what constitutes an armed attack on a satellite, and no collective defence clause that explicitly extends to orbit. Article 42.7 of the Treaty on European Union provides for mutual assistance, but its application to space assets has never been tested.

The Shield will also have to contend with a fragmented industrial base. Europe's prime contractors, Airbus Defence and Space, Thales Alenia Space, OHB, operate across national programmes that duplicate capability and dilute scale. The Commission's 2023 European Space Strategy for Security and Defence attempted to impose coordination, but member states guard their sovereign launch and satellite capabilities jealously. France, Italy and Germany each maintain independent military satellite programmes. The IRIS² multi-orbital constellation, meant to provide secure governmental communications by 2027, is the first major attempt at pooling, but its governance structure remains a compromise between EU ownership and national operational control.

GPS interference as daily reality

The urgency is measurable. Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported that GPS jamming and spoofing around the Baltic Sea have disrupted thousands of civilian flights in recent months. The interference zones correlate with Russian military exercises and the deployment of electronic warfare units to the Kaliningrad exclave. Airlines have been forced to reroute, delay or cancel operations; maritime navigation in the Gulf of Finland has been affected; even land-based logistics relying on precise timing signals have reported anomalies. Von der Leyen herself experienced the phenomenon last year when the private jet carrying her to Bulgaria suffered GPS interference, a personal brush with the vulnerability she will describe in Paris.

These are not abstract scenarios. The EU's critical infrastructure, power grids, financial networks, telecommunications, depends on the precise timing signals distributed by Galileo and GPS. A sustained denial-of-service attack on positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) services would cascade across sectors within hours. The European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) has documented a sharp rise in reported incidents since 2022, though member states remain reluctant to share classified assessments. The Shield will need a reporting mechanism that overcomes this reticence, likely modelled on the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) framework used for cyber incidents.

Institutional turf war beneath the surface

Beneath the strategic rhetoric, a quieter battle is underway. The expected appointment of Benedikta von Seherr-Thoss from the European External Action Service (EEAS) to head a new Ukraine unit inside the Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space (DG DEFIS) is the latest move in a steady expansion of Commission competences into territory the EEAS considers its own. Since 2019, von der Leyen has created a Defence Industry and Space portfolio, launched the European Defence Fund, proposed a European Defence Industry Strategy, and now builds a space security doctrine, all areas where the High Representative and the EEAS claim lead responsibility under the treaties.

Kaja Kallas, the former Estonian prime minister who took over as High Representative in December 2024, has inherited a service already stretched by the war in Ukraine, enlargement negotiations and a deteriorating neighbourhood. Her officials argue that space security is inherently a foreign policy issue, requiring diplomatic engagement with third countries, coordination with NATO, representation at the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, and that the Commission's regulatory tools are insufficient. The Commission counters that space is a single market issue, an industrial policy issue, and now a defence industrial issue, all squarely within its treaty competences. The treaties, written long before anti-satellite weapons existed, offer no clean answer.

Macron's summit as diplomatic stage

Macron's decision to host the summit at the Grand Palais, the same venue that housed the 1900 Exposition Universelle, is deliberate. France has long positioned itself as Europe's space power: the only EU member with an independent launch capability (Ariane, now Ariane 6), a national military space command (Commandement de l'Espace), and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. The summit allows Paris to frame the European conversation, invite partners from the Global South who are developing their own space programmes, and showcase French industry. For von der Leyen, it is an opportunity to claim the European level as the natural forum for space security without appearing to encroach on French prerogatives.

The guest list matters. The United States will send a high-level delegation, likely including the National Space Council and Space Force leadership. China and Russia have been invited, whether they attend will signal their willingness to engage on norms of behaviour. India, Japan, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are all building sovereign capabilities and will be watching for European regulatory signals. The summit's final communiqué, if one emerges, will be negotiated line by line. Previous EU space declarations have foundered on language about dual-use technologies, export controls and the definition of peaceful purposes.

What the speech needs to deliver

Von der Leyen's address will be judged on three criteria. First, whether it articulates a credible deterrence posture, not merely resilience, but a clear statement that attacks on European space assets will trigger a coordinated response, and what that response might entail. Second, whether it resolves the governance ambiguity between the Commission, the EEAS, member states and NATO. The EU-NATO Joint Declaration on Space, signed in 2023, established a framework for information exchange, but operational coordination remains ad hoc. Third, whether it commits resources. The European Defence Fund's space envelope is modest compared to the investment needed for hardened constellations, rapid replacement launch capability, and sovereign electronic warfare payloads.

There is also the question of IRIS². The constellation's first satellites are not expected to launch before 2027, and the full operational capability slips further with each procurement review. If the Shield relies on IRIS² for secure governmental communications, the gap between now and then must be filled, likely by leasing capacity from commercial operators, including non-European ones. That creates strategic dependencies the Shield is meant to eliminate. Von der Leyen may announce a bridging programme, but the budget authority lies with member states in the Council, not the Commission.