EU Space Act Update (May 2026)

On May 8, 2026, in advance of the next Competitiveness Council meeting on May 29, the Council of the European Union released a “progress report” on the status of, changes to, and current “state of play” involving the draft European Union Space Act.

The progress report may be found on the European Council’s website, here.

Overall, delegations considered that the Presidency compromise text is moving in the right direction, notably by reducing complexity and further simplifying the text. At the same time, Member States underlined that several issues remain open and require further work. These include, in particular, the scope of the Regulation and the treatment of dual-use activities and related exemptions; the overall governance architecture and the division of responsibilities between the different actors involved; the need to avoid creating a parallel Union regulatory layer that could duplicate national procedures or generate administrative uncertainty; and the treatment of third-country operators, including the functioning of the equivalence regime.

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All Member States have upheld a scrutiny reservation throughout the Cyprus Presidency.

Previous Updates:

On March 30, 2026, updated “compromise” text of the draft European Union Space Act was released by the Cypriots in their Presidency role of the Council of the European Union. That text may be accessed on the European Council’s website, here.

In addition, the European Council’s Legal Service released a legal opinion for the proposed legislation, which may be accessed here.

The U.S. Department of Commerce, in coordination with colleagues at the U.S. Department of State and across the United States Government, continues to review the updated text. On November 4th, the United States Government submitted its comments to the European Commission regarding the Commission’s draft of the European Union Space Act.

The Office of Space Commerce continues to encourage interested U.S. stakeholders to provide OSC with any feedback on the updated European Union Space Act text. Responses may be submitted via email to space.commerce@noaa.gov.