Some background to something I am watching and which will structurally change risk assessment and global finance.
The CWP 2026 foresees a European Space Shield Action Plan for Q2 2026.
According to the European Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030, the European Space Shield is intended to reinforce the defence capabilities of the Member States and to secure the resilience and protection of space assets and services in response to an increasingly hostile threat environment. It forms part of the broader effort to achieve defence readiness by 2030 through the integration of national and commercial space assets with support from existing EU space systems. The initiative is conceived as a complement to the dual use EU space capabilities that will provide governmental services to all Member States in the fields of positioning, navigation and timing through the Galileo Public Regulated Service, geospatial intelligence via the Earth Observation Governmental Service and secure communications through IRIS². By doing so it seeks to encourage the joint development of sovereign capabilities among Member States.
The initiative aims to promote interoperable national defence capabilities with a particular focus on equipment enabled by Galileo, space domain awareness, the mitigation of jamming and spoofing activities, and in orbit operations and related services. These are areas where Europe currently faces recognised strategic shortfalls and dependencies. The objective is to establish and safeguard a coherent European system of space capabilities that can serve defence purposes and that builds on both EU space systems and existing national capacities.
The formal launch of the European Space Shield is envisaged for the second quarter of 2026.
References:
- European Commission and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Preserving Peace – Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030, October 2025
Author: Sebastian Clapp, Members’ Research Service, legislative-train@europarl.europa.eu
As of 20/03/2026.
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The ‘Legislative Train Schedule’ website offers an easy way to follow the work of the EU institutions on the various legislative and non-legislative elements that form the major part of their work programme. Using the visual metaphor of railways, the website allows users – Members and Parliament staff, as well as a broader public audience – to monitor the progress of legislative files during the current European Parliament term and also in the past two terms.
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