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Everyone, distinguished guests, colleagues, Excellencies, Heads of State.

Welcome, carrying on in this theme to our panel discussion on European competitiveness and global cooperation in space,

and I am delighted to welcome to lead the discussion, Cecilia Severy Guy. Cecilia, the stage is yours. Thank you, Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to this session.

I am delighted and honored to lead this conversation today dedicated to European competitiveness and global competition,

with 4 guests who each hold a real piece of the answer.

Maybe do not agree always on this answer, but this probably will be interesting.

Let me start with a quick introduction, and I will also welcome the panel, and please come on the stage.

Last year,

humanity through technology went to orbit 329 times.

This is more than in any year since the beginning of the space age.

More than 8 out of 10 of those lunches came from just 2 countries.

At the same time, the nature of the demand change.

80% of the institutional money spent on satellites and landsha is now defense money.

And a 3rd shift, private capital came back.

Very unevenly, investment in space rose by 60% worldwide last year. By 177% in the United States alone.

So we have a sector that is growing, concentrating, creating and increasingly driven by security all at the same time, right?

The question we will put to this panel is one that very space forward every space power in this room faces its own ways. What does it take today?

To fund, to decide, to build, and to scale fast enough to stay in the game.

When we ask our panelists, we will use Europe as our case today because it is the model being reshaped today,

but the question underneath belongs to everyone here. Thank you, let me introduce now our panel.

We have Andrius Kubilius, European Commissioner for Defence and Space, since December 24. Welcome.

Eric Trappier, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DAso Aviation, welcome.

We have the President and Chief Executive Officer of Tales Saina Space.

He also chairs the Space Commission of GIFAS, the French Aerospace Industry Association. Welcome on stage. Markus Uhl, Chief Executive Officer of OHB.

And we have also Julio Armando, Chief Executive Officer of AVO. We can hardly hear you. They they hear, but we. OK.

So we have 15 minutes together today, less than a minute, I just used, and a lot of ground to cover, so please keep it short,

Olof you, if you mind, and very concrete, concrete,

a number of facts, and do react to each other directly.

So this is meant to be a conversation, right? So let's start. Let's start with competitiveness.

Can Europe Remain a global space leader without fundamentally changing the way it funds,

procures, develops, and scales its space capabilities.

I will start with you, Andrius Kubilius, but then I will invite Olof you to share your thoughts.

OK, well, thanks a lot for organizing this very important. Discussion Definitely space, like the defense industry.

We have a lot of challenges when we are talking about competitiveness of our industries.

And in my view, well, it's very clear.

What we need to look into when we are talking about competitiveness,

for example, of our space industries, our space performance.

The first one, of course, is the factor of technologies. Where we can be quite.

Satisfied that we are quite good in technologies,

we are developing world class new developments.

Sometimes maybe we are slower than some competitors globally, but it's European habit to be slow at the beginning,

but then when we are starting to move ahead, then we are building the best constellations like Galileo or Copernicus. But when you have good technology. Then the question comes, first of all.

What kind of domestic market do you have?

Here I will not repeat all the Draghi report.

But I think that he is absolutely right.

Our markets, both in defense and space, are quite fragmented.

Maybe defense is more fragmented in that space, but we need to see again very simple logic.

If we have a defragmented market in space, our industries, using the size of the domestic market of 450 million people,

would be able to grow up and become ready for global competition.

So that is what is this factor, I would say 50/50.

The third factor, of course, in global competition is the size.

If you look at who we are competing, either Space Six or some Chinese companies, you see what their feature is the size.

So the question is how we can come overcoming some kind of power fragmentation and to become much more consolidated.

There are good steps forward, but we need to continue. And the last point.

In order to be competitive, you need to have We are ready for that institutional arrangement.

In my view, again, if we are looking into with whom we are competing with China or with the United States,

we have the issue.

We have 27 national space policies, 27 national space budgets.

I am not saying that we should abandon that,

but it means that in our case we are developing ourselves very much based on a bottom up approach.

There is a lack of some kind of top down approach.

I am talking about that all the time about defense, but the same with space,

and we need to look into that institutional arrangement,

how to become more united and more effective in governing our space development.

We will address the question of financial fragmentation and regulation.

Later in the conversation, I will ask, Olof you, maybe the same question.

What is the greatest barrier, today to the competitivity of Europe? Maybe Markus Uhl, you want. So you can't hear me right?

You want me, OK, I can speak louder if you need, maybe, sorry for Olof you.

Did Olof you share the point of view of Andrius Kubilius on what is today a barrier of the competitivity of Europe?

Maybe if I say something about the space industry to begin with, I don't believe that the space industry in Europe is so uncompetitive. I think this is the wrong assumption.

I think we all live in a world where we see all kinds of pressures in the car industry,

and many other industries and transformation that gives us the feeling we are lagging behind everywhere. I don't believe that.

Is lagging behind everywhere and I can certainly tell you that Europe in satellites, especially Earth observation, climate,

everything that has to do with the applications is very good navigation, so the European system in space is not.

In an overall crisis mode, to be very specific, what Europe has missed out is 12 years ago when we decided to build a new rocket, we did not opt for reusability and we left the reusability to SpaceX,

and they obviously excelled at that and they are very, very effective with it,

and they proved the point that reusability is the right system to be successful.

That's a fact and we all know it, but that's the overarching.

The debate we are having on many of the competitiveness things in terms of constellations,

which is typically the second argument when it comes to non-competitive analysis in Europe.

The reality is that Europe was very much involved in the first generation of telco constellations.

We were the leading partners in Global Star.

We built Iridium Next, OneWeb,

but those all went bankrupt because the business model didn't play out for whatever reason.

Stalin is the first constellation that is apparently commercially successful.

It seems that's very good and that's very nice, but I think we answered as Europe that question in a different mode,

and this is something we have been celebrating here.

We opted for Iris Square, so I think this telecom constellation issue has been.

So I don't see that this is an industry in crisis. This is an industry booming.

We are booming in the European space industry and I don't want to always debate about crisis mode.

I think Europe has a very, very strong space industry.

We have institutionally strong industry commercially, so I can only say let's focus on the weaknesses,

but don't have a generalistic view that Europe is not competitive in space.

Do you think like, yes, maybe a moment of applause for this optimistic view of position of Europe now bouncing back on the,

on the and on, on Markus Uhl, first, a correction, Iridium N has not gone bankrupt.

It's a very profitable program that has been delivered by Telesenia Space.

Just, just, just took no, but it was not delivered by test, that one.

OK, so just, I mean after that small correction, I, I, I, I would like to say that indeed I mean referring back to the Draghi's report,

everything is in it, and I think Commissioner Kudlis reminded the key elements of that the unfragmented market,

the access to very large programs to have the scale.

One point that was also part of the Draghi report is the investment in upstream R&T in order to have,

let's say the the technologies available on time for those programs, and I also would add setting the bar in terms of.

Ambition in terms of technological and performance ambition at the market level and let's say not.

Let's not go on with a program that would with a program that would have a bar lower than that, and I concur with Markus. I think we've got. The strengths required for that.

There are a number of things that we need to do in the new paradigm of constellations,

including the fact that when it comes to unique objects, bespoke satellites,

we have to have, let's say, levels of extremely high, relying on space components.

Now let's say when it comes to constellation, we can go to cut components.

That's totally possible and therefore reduce the cost of our satellites and.

On that basis, I think we can, we can be faster.

Another element that we need also to do in order to speed up our deliveries is to review our referentials.

I mean we have this famous ECCS referential which once again is totally valid for bespoke large satellites which doesn't apply anymore.

Let's say large constellations, so there are a number of things that can be done to increase the competitiveness, but fundamentally I think the industry has everything it takes to be competitive.,

do you want to add a thought on that and maybe tell us if you think that we need more competition or more consolidation. In Europe today.

So I promised myself I would be short, but in this case, unfortunately I can't. So let me say something. So what I believe to be competitiveness.

Competitiveness means that customers believe that your product or service is better than someone else's.

Because of price or because of technology performance and so on,

I don't think we have in Europe any gap in terms of technological capability and so on.

We have a lot of knowledge and so on.

But I, I very much endorse what Commissioner Kubilius would say that we have a challenge on being competitive on price because we do not have yet the scale of others,

OK? And who are these others?

Let's make it simple, United States and China, OK.

So we cannot be competitive versus these other parts of the world if we use a different legislative framework. We just cannot. What do I refer to?

In the US they have what they call the Buy American Act since 1933 that forces the preference of one product or service versus the other by an act of law.

So you cannot use a non-US solution for government. Contract and so on. You cannot by law.

I don't need to convince anybody that the same applies in China.

So between these three parts of the world, we are the only one who does not have an equivalent of the Buy America Act.

So I don't know what we are waiting for before we put in place legislation of this kind in Europe as well. Buy European Act. Why do we need that?

Because if we continue to leak activity for Europe that we buy elsewhere,

how do you expect that we reach the volume for us to be competitive on price? It is virtually impossible.

I think first and foremost we need to put ourselves on an equal footing with the other parts of the world,

which is no guarantee that we will be cost competitive and volume competitive, but it would be a pretty good start.

And then we need to do the best to be efficient, of course, but I think we have no gaps in terms of technology.

But this legislative gap we need to have the courage to close immediately because you cannot compete with others not on an equal footing.

Since you are jumping on the topic of choosing Europe,

maybe I can jump on that and ask Andrius Kubilius should Europe introduce a stronger preference for European supplier and use institutional procurement to build scale,

or would such protection weaken competitiveness somehow?

I think that the clear tendency is really to take care about.

European production and spending European money at least on European production that is very clearly reflected in all the different defense programs now and I see very clear signals that the same. Is approaching in space.

For example, if you look at declarations which now are submitted to the summit on launching,

it has very clear language.

We need to have European launching from European soil,

including territories outside the European continent, and,

of course, produced by European producers. So that is the language.

Now how to implement that language, do we need the law or not? It is for lawyers to answer.

I am really not myself a big expert on international trade and all.

W WTO regulations and so on,

so let's see if we need to really answer to what is happening globally with our effective means on our side,

that's for sure.

Eric Tiare, would you like to add some, some thought about the preference, European preference? Yes, it's about competitiveness.

I think first that space is about science. We need to have a good scientists.

We need to have a good mathematical school,

so you need to have a good education level in your country or in Europe.

This is where we are coming from, in Europe. So I need to remind that. Second is.

Of course, when at a certain point you need to design, you need to manufacture,

you need to launch systems in, in the space, you need the industry. Industry is very simple.

You first need to get investors, so you have to talk to your investors and to tell them, look,

I have a good idea in space and there is an interest in the state or in the market for a civilian application.

So I need so much money in order to invest and then you have a business plan and if you have a business plan.

You have a competition and I am totally in favor of the competition and in order to resolve the problem of the fragmentation which I think Only in Europe you can hear fragmentation story.

Never in China you don't, you don't listen to that in the US where we all travel,

you don't listen to that because there is an interest.

If two companies want to merge, they merge.

It's a matter of companies' policy and a matter of shareholders' policy.

And if they have an interest to make more money to address the market in a way, then they merge.

But if there are two politicians or a Commission or anywhere who say you shouldn't merge if you want if you want the contract,

it doesn't work because in a way you need to be the best one.

So if you need to be the best one for performance in order to face the competition outside Europe,

you need to find a way and a model in which you are going to produce the best in your own environment,

and you need to.

Mobilize finance in order to do the best. If not, you will disappear.

Or if not, then you will request from the states to pay more and more and more.

And at a certain level, the states are not able to pay, and then you collapse.

At the collapse, the states do something else and the company collapse and the shareholders will go somewhere else.

So it's in the US it's very easy. You put money, you develop your system.

Then the system in the US pay you back. In China it's very easy.

It's a policy of the state to support because this is so-called strategic.

In Europe we have not yet found the right model for space, but there are good results in a way.

But if we want to go a little bit further.

We need to put the money in innovation.

This is what we are requesting as companies.

If you don't have the innovation budget, then you cannot go to the target.

And then if you have the right innovation, your business model,

you will try to create whether you address states or you address the market.

Maybe we can talk about ambition because you're talking about a lot of innovation projects.

Yes, we need to have ambition in different types. We may be competitors sometimes. We may be partners and.

You know, in spaces you don't have partners you cannot succeed.

I mean you can't address alone such challenging big systems and this is why for example we are a partnership for trying to create a kind of.

Space shuttle or space aircraft in order to be mobile in space and we are not only 2,

we are quite a number around with smaller companies startup.

I don't like to make giant companies, you know, and if you look at the US,

the older giant companies are in trouble and the new ones, they are giants, but they were small at the beginning, so.

I think the question of to be big or not is not an issue.

The issue is, do you have the good idea? Do you have the good partners?

Do you have the good suppliers, and are you competitive in a way which is the performance?

So the force should be driving by the industry and then look for some money.

I mean, I was talking about ambition in some part of the world, companies promising that sound almost impossible.

And investors pay for the promise long before the project exists, right?

In Europe we promise what we know we can deliver and we deliver it. Both cultures have produced remarkable things.

But one of them raises capital and on the future, and the other has to prove itself first.

So here's my question I want on the table. Is Europe short of means or ambition? Is it a good way of thinking? Should we have to rethink this approach? Gian Lorenzo, I see you have a reaction.

Maybe you want to be first on that point.

I was asking if you are short of means or ambitions. No, none, none of the two.

We are not short of ambitions and our ideas.

We are not short of technologies and we are not short of suppliers or good ideas, as Mr. Tope was saying.

I think we need to clarify in our minds what is the approach that in space is probably key to succeeding, and I see in Europe that we are applying the opposite strategy as compared to what is happening in the US,

which may be good or bad, but what we see in the US today is what I call vertical integration,

very simple launch, satellite manufacturing, ground operations, and AI. This is happening everywhere. So, SpaceX, Starlink, XAI. Amazon, Blue Origin, and so on. Now we see Iridium and Rocket Lab.

In Europe we are working the other way around.

We are attempting to merge Tales and Airbus together.

To satellite manufacturers and ground operators, but we do not see this type of verticals,

and we are Nearly missing the portion in space that relates to AI to the scale that we would actually need to succeed.

So I think we need to reflect if our model is still good or if we should probably consider to try growing by adding together pieces in vertical,

so putting together the ability to launch something, the ability to create the satellites,

to manage the ground segment, and also to deliver the service via.

AI tools, which is something that I think in Europe I have not yet seen.

Hm, so maybe we miss some giant technological giants like telecommunication, maybe a bigger,

bigger actor so we can provide a bigger market for you.

The bad news is that the technological giant doesn't exist in Europe, not that I know of, unless I was distracted, but.

But I don't think we have an equivalent of OpenAI, Anthropic,

Google, Microsoft, and the likes unless I missed something.

But the space sector is responsible a little bit of that. Maybe space sector have a responsibility.

Maybe the space sector may have the technological capability to do that,

but so far we haven't moved much on data centers and so on compared to what is happening in the US and partly in China. So we can provide space solutions.

I am not sure that the people who are sitting here can find any solution, including AI, including data centers, and so on,

but unless we embrace this new paradigm of the future ability to deliver services to public institutions and to consumers and citizens,

unless we embrace this challenge, we will have missing pieces, I believe.

Anyone want to add a thought on what Ruiz Alonso what you're saying? I'd like to confirm what you said.

Obviously it seems to be easier to raise money, private money in the United States,

especially in the early stages in the venture segment.

So yes, that market is more liquidity and there's more liquidity over there in that domain,

but we have also seen remarkable successes in raising money for European space companies and. That will always be a challenge.

One thing I'd like to remark is that also in the US,

a very large portion of the money that is spent in the industry comes from taxpayers' sources.

So there's a lot of military money, a lot of agency money, also a lot of demand for service provision is in the end governmental.

In terms of the, the source of the money, so not so much fully commercial demand that comes from private, demand,

And I think some of the names, or most of the names that you just mentioned are pretty recent companies.

Those are all companies that not too long ago have been startups,

so it's not that they are big companies that are consolidating in the US.

It's more that you see many big companies that used to be in space, Boeing, Lockheed, and so on are not so visible anymore.

And if you look at, for example, The programs with astronauts,

how SpaceX was able to succeed where Boeing was not, is telling.

It's a telling story to see that the space industry has in the US become a separate industry. It's an own industry.

It's a space industry not attached to aerospace anymore as it used to be in the early days or in the Apollo days. What to learn from that.

I think we also have to take the space industry seriously as its own industry,

and I think this is actually what this whole event is all about, that this is a space.

It's not a big industrial aerospace fair like Ela or Le Bourge, but it's a space summit, and I think that makes a lot of sense.

But we will see how it will work out.

I mean, not everything in the US is going to be successful, and not everything, not every money that has been spent there has been successful. We all look very much to this.

Big visible companies basics, of course they have done incredible things.

Yes, of course they are a big success story within the last 20 years, but that is based on hard engineering,

on successful launching, on being able with the Dragon to send astronauts up to the station. Many things.

Starlink, almost 10,000 satellites have been launched and provided a solid service.

So I think we have to we have to work hard to catch up. In terms of structure, I don't know.

I think it's important that there's a public demand, of course there needs to be public demand,

and I'm very happy to see that, Commissioner Kubilius is proposing a much bigger budget in the next period. This is very good.

We have to obviously acknowledge that military budgets have increased. I can say that.

In Germany, the military budget has very much been increased,

especially in space, but also civilian budget for ESA.

So I think we are living in good times. These are the golden years.

We will look back to the mid-20s as the golden years of the space industry where the industry is creating. Big steps forward.

In reality, we are, as Eric said,

we have to look at the resources at excellence of people to work because we need to be delivering on what we sell.

So I think overall the industry is in good shape. Yes, we can change the structure.

Yes, we can change the financing models, but more or less we have to make sure that the stuff we do really works,

that the stuff has an operational value.

And then all these questions with buy European or not will be answered themselves.

I mean we were solid buy Europeans with Ariane 4 and Ariane 5 because it was working very well.

Even the Americans and the Asians were buying the reliability of European industry.

Yes, but it was it was not based on regulation. It was based on quality. Thank you.

Just maybe to conclude, because I, I'm coming back to your initial answer, do we have access to capital and are we, are we lacking ambition?

I, I think we can acknowledge the fact that we don't have unlimited capital, like what you can find in the US. That's, that's an obvious, but that's clear.

But this being said, we don't, we can't say that we are lacking ambition. Two examples here.

First one, Galileo, it's one of our flagship programs.

Just to remind everyone here, Galileo has cost 4th of what the GPS systems has costed. And the performance is greater.

So I mean, are we not ambitious when, when, when you give this kind of performance? And again also about RE Square.

R Square is going to be, let's say a fully 5G system that will provide features that don't exist anywhere else today.

As an example, there will be direct terminal to terminal communication for military purpose. This doesn't exist on any other network.

All other networks have to go through gateways, so I mean. We should not be shy.

We should be proud of what we do. We should be proud.

You're right, but also it's important to remind that maybe Iri Square alone can feed all the markets.

So this is interesting to explore what we can create. Yes, as a, as a new project.

You, you mentioned, the, budget proposed by the Commission,

131 billion for defense and space combined.

Andrius Kubilius, can you tell us If possible, how much of that can be allocated for space or if not,

whether it will be ring fenced within the envelope or at least how will the money in marked for the space sector be distributed and under what rules.

It is a little bit too early to have precise answers to all the questions.

€131 billion which We are talking about for defense and space is what the Commission proposed.

Besides the Commission, we have the European Parliament and we have the Council of Member States.

Parliament, it looks like it would be happy to increase more,

but the Council does not look very much in favor. So what will be the amount?

As always, you know, with the next MFF,

decisions are made during the last night, so we shall see.

In our approximate evaluation, I cannot give you precise numbers.

But we see really space and defense more or less equal in that distribution.

In space, we have a very clear goal we can have very clear.

Criteria what we need to do in the next budget.

We need to develop infrastructures or to continue exploitation of infrastructures which we have built before,

like Galileo, like Copernicus to improve them, to continue building Cari Square.

Jump much more forcefully into launching and some other areas which we need to cover,

but when we are talking about infrastructure, it means that you need to have a very precise numbers.

Of money, what you can allocate to that infrastructure is a little bit different from defense,

and that is why it will be very important for us to have a space budget. As big as possible for Olof us.

I agree absolutely with Markus Uhl who was saying that in the United States also a lot of things are developed in space using public money or governmental money. Here comes the biggest difference. Our possibilities and American possibilities.

In Europe we are redistributing, and the same with the United States, quite a big part of our GDP back to the budget.

In Europe I remember very well the numbers.

45% of GDP comes back to the budget, and member states are spending that money.

The United States may be a little bit less,

but nevertheless we can talk about 40% of GDP coming back to the budget, which means the size of the budget.

The EU budget is 1% of our GDP.

When we are talking about this, we need to develop European constellations, European programs.

If we want to be on the same level as Americans, we need to understand what is the difference. 1 and 40% at United States level. That is why there is a problem.

I am not saying that it is easy to resolve how to have more of European funds in order to achieve the best outcomes for European development,

that is for big politicians to find their way, but this is the biggest difference.

Can we talk a little bit about fragmentation, financial fragmentation,

and the first issue when it comes to the fragmentation of financial resources is the well-known rule of, geographic return.

Should, should it be called, into question today and,

maybe up here I see you, taking your microphone.

Look, I may understand that when a country, a member state is putting money, he wants some work back to its citizens, but if you want,

if we want to collectively be efficient, we need really to have first a performance because if you take the United States,

if they pay for a certain product.

They don't look at whether it will come back to Arizona, Texas, or New York City.

They will say it's good for America, so.

Of course the question is is a political issue. We are not one country in Europe.

We are a certain number of country and and the Commission and the Parliament are not.

One country,

there are a number of countries wanting to gather a certain level of integration but not completely together.

So if you take defense, for example, the member states are in charge of defense,

there are there are more than happy to have the support of the Commission as far as the budget is concerned,

but today launching a defense new.

Product from European side in Brussels to apply to all the countries in Europe is not possible.

We need to admit that whether we like it or not. This is a fact.

So we need to have good products and as said we can develop good products and then.

We should have the countries in Europe buying this product if it is a good product.

So in other words, I would say that yes,

I think we should get a kind of European preference to buy whether the product is good.

And whether the innovation funds which would have been put by the member states or by the Commission should be analyzed to get a return on a certain number of countries in order to design,

manufacture, support, preferably in Europe.

I don't know how we do it and.

I'm not so much in favor of too much laws, too much rules, because I think that we are as industry suffering for so many norms, standards, and rules which are not always,

but often the speculation of some people who do not know at all what is industry and they are maybe in Europe trying to do their best for the citizens because.

This is how Europe has been created,

but the question to be effective is also to take into account the constraints of industry. The constraints of industry is very simple.

We need to be supported in defense and in space by the member states and the Commission for innovation.

We need to have the best products, so we need innovation and then we need that if the result is good and whether it is good,

then the countries buy the European solution that would be better if the product is not good.

OK, go to the US, go to China, go,

I don't know why we shall not stop totally the commerce to be a worldwide organized. But they are competition.

The competition is not only between companies, it is between member states and Europe may try to mobilize energy among the member states in order to resist to countries which are giants by themselves,

but we are far from that.

So I welcome all the initiatives from the Commission or from.

The agencies, but we are far from the results, so we need to organize the work for the next decades,

taking into account that we are not one country, we are different countries.

You're right,

I guess the question is how we can simplify the pooling of financial resources while still keeping investment volumes on the rise.

Sorry, geographic return is not a good solution because we are 26, 27.

Maybe more tomorrow how to organize for industry to be sure that we are going to give jobs to 27 countries even if they have not the skills or the capabilities we are dead.

I mean this is a constraint and at the end if we do it at the end.

Those who are going to buy, which are member states in defense or even in space sometime we say you are more more expensive,

so let's go to the to the US, which in a in a way is not often less expensive. This is a kind of, you know. I buy US because it's less expensive. I'm not so sure.

Also, maybe it will not be so accurate because of the need of sovereignty, sovereignty and security.

I see I want to jump on that question.

Comments on this return that is applied on a programs.

So first, as you said, Eric, I think we need to find a balance because countries,

especially smaller countries, will only let's say spend money if they have some mutual return.

But this being said, I think we need to make distinctions between programs that are unique,

bespoke, you know, satellites and thinking about the scientific programs.

OK, it's not totally optimal cost wise, but at the end it's one satellite, and this is not the same.

When you're talking about serial production, I mean when you talk about IN 6, if you are uncompetitive,

then it's becoming an issue because every time you have a recurrent satellite, this competitiveness issue will pop up.

So I think we could, let's say look at those two types of programs in a separate way.

And second point, and I think you said that also,

one of the difficulties we have with the jury return rule as it states today, it's done on a program by program basis.

So for each and every program you need to assign this amount of money in that in that particular country.

What would be needed is a higher level of pooling of programs so that we don't look at your return, let's say from a program standpoint,

from a program by program standpoint, but on a larger pool so that let's say we can combine competitiveness and due return.

I mean, maybe we should also look at the fact that those systems, they exist in parallel.

So obviously there's GeoReturn and ASA, yes, and as the name said, it's a return, so it's a specific subscriptions that countries do,

mostly on optional programs, by the way, the big part of the money is on.

Optional programs where countries with their industry in view decide to subscribe to certain activities that they find attractive to participate in.

So obviously if the money would not come back, the money would not even go there in the first place.

So a country that wants to take part in a certain activity.

And has not the assurance that something comes back but the money goes somewhere else, would not invest.

So that's good luck to the space ministers to convince the finance ministries to invest in ASA if there's no way of getting anything back. So this system. This is a risk, right?

Well, it's a certainty more than a risk, I guess, that if the money goes somewhere else, then it wouldn't even come in the first place.

But this is a smaller budget compared to the other budgets.

I mean in the European Union we do not have geour.

It all comes through other mechanisms and then the big debate is what we're just talking about is the allocation of the long term financial framework program,

and it's allocated there.

Informally there might be something similar like a Gurn in the sense that member states that over the quota invest a lot of money obviously also want to see some money and some activities go to their country,

so you cannot have an imbalance even in that system over a very long period because then there will be disappointment. Way of financing is national.

That's military and international space agencies that obviously is national, so countries decide what they want to procure for their military purposes.

Obviously military is not part of the policies in the same way.

It's defense industries that is coordinated, but not the military. We have national sovereignty over military.

And as long as we have that, obviously the procurement is decided on a national level.

It might be coordinated, yes, but To say that the financing mechanism in this diverse world is the reason for something to be better or worse,

I'm not so sure.

I'm not so sure if this is really true.

I think that this can be combined and as we see on all these big three flagship programs Galileo, Copernicus, and Iris Square, there is a combination anyway.

Those programs tend to start at ESA with developments and then they end up in the implementation of the Commission with the rollout and the ramp up.

So I'm not so sure if this is the area where improvement is easy.

Thank you Júlia, do you want to add some things, and then we can move on to the last topics which will be regulation.

Very quickly I wanted to come back to something that both Markus and Hervé have touched upon,

which is the fact that we need to unlock our ability in Europe to access capital big time.

I'm not sure we are realizing the difference between Europe and the US, for example. We have talked about fragmentation.

In Europe, we have a stock exchange for every country, pretty much we have within the Union, right?

And each of these stock exchanges is, is a fraction of what they have in the US where the, the stock exchange is in one place.

They have two listing venues, the NYSE and NASDAQ, and that's it. And this is so massively larger, right? So we cannot complain.

We have made steps forward, for example, with my company, I have been, which is very small, $1.3 billion in market cap.

We have been able to raise half a billion dollars in the last €5 billion in the in the last nine months. Very good, very proud of it.

But when you look at the US,

I don't know if you guys realize that looking at our sector that now goes all the way downstream towards technology and AI.

For example, there was a single transaction by OpenAI where they raised $122 billion in a day,

$122 billion.

The listing of SpaceX raised $85 billion in cash.

The acquisition by SpaceX of Hemisphere was 60 billion, so these numbers are not comparable.

When this cash will be deployed to the broader sector of upstream space and downstream technology and AI.

This is not a little bit larger than Europe.

This is a factor of 100 with respect to Europe.

In Europe, when you look at the money we have raised for space and defense,

we hardly over the last year we hardly get to a few billion maybe if we are lucky on a lucky day.

So if on the other side of the world they are investing a few 100 billions,

there is a problem with access to capital that we need to fix, I believe. Gil Alonso.

I would like to finish with the regulation topics.

And I will ask you maybe first maybe Eric Tiare, can the regulation be a vector of unification?

You already started to answer this question, Mr. Tralla, so you can first answer.

Can it be a vector of unification at the end of Europe itself and between Europe and its international partners?

I would say why not if it is performed in a way which is a kind of simplification of the system if we are duplicating systems among the member states and the organizations at the level of Europe.

And if we each organization add new rules and new regulations,

this will not work if we for example for space there is something very effective and the member states get agreement to go ahead and then there is an urgency.

Whatever it is, going ahead to organize the, the, the contracts to organize following the contract,

but if it is only to get more difficulties to us and we may see that and even in the in in the research on technology when when you are taking some money from the Commission and from then we have.

So many controls which are in addition to the controls we have with our member states is we are not against controls of course you have public money you need to but you know it's it's it's it's becoming difficult too many layers so. The simplification is really a need. It's not only in space or defense. It's true everywhere. We need to get rules.

We need to get organizations, but this should lead to simplification, which is not the case.

Andreas Kondylis, I would like you to jump on this question and maybe add some thought.

Would the Space Act in fact be the factor that consolidates the overall European market?

Is it going to simplify somehow as asked by Mr. Treppe?

In my view, absolutely, because the alternative is to have 27 rules. Space industries and so on.

Now what we are proposing, we are proposing one set of rules, so that is, in my view, exactly simplification.

Of course those rules should be, how do you say, not too heavy with bureaucratic oversight.

We are Member States are engaging in that, but that is what is very much needed.

And that is where again I was quoting Mario Draghi, but I will not repeat everything, but In my view,

space has an advantage if you compare with defense because in defense we have 27 national policies according to the treaty,

27 defense markets, and so on and so on.

In space, the situation until now was not so heavily fragmented.

But we see that a round of 13 European countries now introducing or introduced their own space law,

which means their own regulation.

For national development of space industries and space things,

and also we see that when money is starting to come, bigger money on a national level. Especially from defense into space.

Usually, when the money on a national level is starting to appear, then Member States have the temptation to go alone.

It is good that Member States are investing in space,

but we need to be very careful not to allow this fragmentation to start to become much more deeper in space.

I guess the question is also how we create. No, it's OK.

How do we create a mutual market rather than a co-regulated,

a co-regulation that could end up being paralyzing, right? Do you have the answer, of that?

This is your intention, creating a, a, a mutual market with also international, leaders.

Creation of market means, first of all,

simplifying the rules and have one set of rules.

Other things like consolidation of industries, is not for the government or for public institutions to decide.

Of course we need to follow the rules on consolidation,

but definitely.

We can incentivize, we can help industries to move along,

to become more competitive, to have access to European consumers.

That is what we can do to Olof you.

We are running out of time, so we have to conclude this round table and this really interesting session.

Thank you for your participation and thank you all for listening to everyone.