European Union Space Programme

The European Union Space Programme^[2] is an EU funding programme established in 2021 along with its managing agency, the European Union Agency for the Space Programme,^[3] in order to implement the pre-existing European Space Policy established on 22 May 2007 when a joint and concomitant meeting at the ministerial level of the Council of the European Union and the Council of the European Space Agency, known collectively as the European Space Council, adopted a Resolution on the European Space Policy.^[4] The policy had been jointly drafted by the European Commission and the Director General of the European Space Agency. This was the first common political framework for space activities established by the European Union (EU).^[5]

Each of the member states have pursued to some extent their own national space policy, though often co-ordinating through the independent European Space Agency (ESA). Enterprise and Industry Commissioner Günter Verheugen has stated that even though the EU is "a world leader in the technology, it is being put on the defensive by the United States and Russia and that it only has about a 10 year technological advantage on China and India, which are racing to catch up."^[6][7]