Challenges of Space for the EU and CSDP

The European Security and Defence College (ESDC) had the honour of co-organising, together with the French Institute for Higher National Defence Studies (IHEDN), the Challenges of Space for the EU and CSDP Course. The course was successfully held, virtually, between 23-25 March 2021 with active participation and excellent outcomes. The aim of the course was to raise awareness of the importance of space activities in the CSDP framework, and enabled participants to form a broad overview of international space policies. The focus of the first day of the course was on a general overview of the EU’s space strategy, in terms of actors and procedures, challenges to space security and the various European space programmes.

The second day of the course dealt with partnership and cooperation. It placed specific emphasis on national space policies, the international dimension of cooperation in space security and surveillance, traffic management, protection of critical infrastructure and examples of cooperation on the ground.

The last day reviewed space diplomacy and economics, space innovation and research as well as the European Space Industry.

We would like to thank all the keynote speakers for their excellent contributions and input, and the very high quality of their speeches and lectures.

It is encouraging that, although the course was in a virtual format, the content of the presentations and the extremely relevant topics on current and future space challenges  triggered thought-provoking and rewarding discussions between the participants and the experts.

We would like to thank all 39 participants for their confidence in the ESDC and we will do our utmost to continue providing high quality training.