More criticism and opposition to Europe’s proposed space law
This label would be more accurate if it read
“NOT made in the European Union”
At a conference in Germany this week, officials from the U.S. and several European countries expressed strong reservations about a proposed new European space law that would impose significant regulations on satellite and rocket companies, even if they are not European-based.
The objections by the American representative merely underlined the opposition already expressed by the State Department two weeks ago, when it said the law placed ““unacceptable regulatory burdens on U.S. providers of space services to European customers.”
Objections however were also expressed by officials from the United Kingdom and Liechtenstein. The latter’s comments also suggested further opposition should be expected from other European nations as well.
Liechtenstein is not a member of the EU but is part of the European Economic Area (EEA), said Bianca Lins, lead for space in the Liechtenstein Office for Communications. Since the EU Space Act covers issues like a single market for space services in Europe, “it’s going to be incorporated into the EEA agreement and also means we have to transpose it into national law.”
Her concern, she said, is that the act “does not really consider the international obligations that every sovereign state has,” including responsibilities under the Outer Space Treaty. She expected Liechtenstein, Iceland and Norway — the other EEA states outside the EU — to submit comments on those issues.
The law has also been condemned by companies in the U.S. as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
It is unclear however if the European Union is reconsidering the bill. If it passes it will do significant harm. One possibility is that American companies will pull much of their satellite and launch business out of Europe. And if they do not, it will likely cause them to defy the law, with State Department backing. The EU has no right to impose its rules on American companies.
If the latter occurs, it will thus set a significant legal precedent that suggests the European Union is a toothless non-entity with no real legal power. I suspect this threat above all will force the EU to reconsider the bill.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
This label would be more accurate if it read
“NOT made in the European Union”
At a conference in Germany this week, officials from the U.S. and several European countries expressed strong reservations about a proposed new European space law that would impose significant regulations on satellite and rocket companies, even if they are not European-based.
The objections by the American representative merely underlined the opposition already expressed by the State Department two weeks ago, when it said the law placed ““unacceptable regulatory burdens on U.S. providers of space services to European customers.”
Objections however were also expressed by officials from the United Kingdom and Liechtenstein. The latter’s comments also suggested further opposition should be expected from other European nations as well.
Liechtenstein is not a member of the EU but is part of the European Economic Area (EEA), said Bianca Lins, lead for space in the Liechtenstein Office for Communications. Since the EU Space Act covers issues like a single market for space services in Europe, “it’s going to be incorporated into the EEA agreement and also means we have to transpose it into national law.”
Her concern, she said, is that the act “does not really consider the international obligations that every sovereign state has,” including responsibilities under the Outer Space Treaty. She expected Liechtenstein, Iceland and Norway — the other EEA states outside the EU — to submit comments on those issues.
The law has also been condemned by companies in the U.S. as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
It is unclear however if the European Union is reconsidering the bill. If it passes it will do significant harm. One possibility is that American companies will pull much of their satellite and launch business out of Europe. And if they do not, it will likely cause them to defy the law, with State Department backing. The EU has no right to impose its rules on American companies.
If the latter occurs, it will thus set a significant legal precedent that suggests the European Union is a toothless non-entity with no real legal power. I suspect this threat above all will force the EU to reconsider the bill.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
One should consider the possibility that the EU desperately wants to regulate American business, American citizens, and America, and is going forward appropriately with that goal in mind. Not just this space bill but other proposals that would regulate the internet, certain financial transactions, “hate” speech, and so on. All this is designed to ensnare and encumber the U.S.
I had a discussion about this issue some years back with an English woman, and said to her (she was infuriated by my statement): “my ancestors left Europe to get away from your ancestors.”
We Americans have never been forgiven for that.
View these proposal through this lens and it may become clearer what the EU is trying to do. Just a thought.
Steve White: I agree. The question remains whether Americans today have the wherewithal to fight that European effort with the same vigor as in 1776. It appears the Trump administration and Elon Musk do. I have doubts about the rest.
“. The EU has no right to impose its rules on American companies.”
That is the entire point of the EU and the agenda that guides it, right?
Forcing their authoritarian / Socialist agenda on all.
Ah, I have found what the EU is today all about in a Youtube short:
https://youtube.com/shorts/bWZ6WXFIHso?si=cShpl98J0xTcHwBv
This is not going to end well.
IMO the EU and its welfare state is the greatest threat to human freedom that exists today. It creates comfortable serfs.
I’ve always said let the Russians have them.
They and China have never been afraid to go all Vlad the Impaler on Islam.
One of Elon’s businesses, X, has been embroiled in fights with the EU and its bureaucrats pretty much since he bought the thing and de-woke-ified it. This proposed space law is aimed squarely at one of his other businesses, SpaceX. With anti-EU sentiment bubbling up in many of its member states – including the two largest – the EU is very much on the back foot these days and is responding in the fashion usual to socialist regimes in such circumstances – doubling down on the statism.
Fortunately, the EU never got the independent, transnational military it has long craved or the lights would already be out in much of Europe. Lacking any means beyond voluntary compliance to enforce its diktats, the EU will be broken as soon as non-compliance becomes normative. The end of the EU will likely be episodic and messy, but I don’t really see it lasting more than a few additional years. An exit by either Germany or France would be a death blow.
Just as Elon came to see American leftism – correctly – as the threat to US freedoms that it is, he has done likewise anent Europe. It isn’t widely known here, but Elon is at least as involved in European politics as he is in those of the US. He’s a major supporter of Tommy Robinson in the UK, for example, and also has ties to several of the anti-EU nationalist parties in what we might as well start calling Occupied Europe.
In Elon, one hopes the Left has chosen the form of its destructor by making an enemy of him. Elon is an engineer. When he sees a problem, he sets about solving it. The Left should be very afraid. Fortunately, most of them seem to be too delusional and dismissive to appreciate the threat. That is good. It is always easiest to snipe the enemy when he’s facing away from you.