There’s a way forward for sovereign European space intel, but is there the will?

Germany’s top intelligence officials made waves last year by calling for the creation of a European spy network to lessen Europe’s dependence on American intelligence. After Washington’s sudden freeze of American intelligence sharing with Ukraine in March, German officials — and their European counterparts — have grown increasingly attuned to deficiencies in key capabilities they need to deter Russia amid a less-reliable United States security commitment. One such deficiency lies in the realm of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites. European countries need to scale up their ability to share satellite data through existing EU institutions, or risk being left blind and deaf to aggressive Russian activity if the American security commitment to Europe continues to wane. European states have the mechanisms to begin solving this problem, but only if they have the political will to pool information traditionally kept in their respective capitols.

Europe’s militaries could not operate without access to space. Satellites provide much of the intelligence, navigation and instant communications capabilities relied on by land, sea and air forces every day. Currently, much of that access is brought by the U.S. — European states only operate 17% of NATO’s military satellites. If the U.S. was unable or unwilling to provide this critical data — thanks to, say, a crisis in the Indo-Pacific or a large-scale withdrawal from Europe — Europe would lack this critical data. The EU launched its Space Strategy for Security and Defense in 2022, but Europe’s space capabilities remain less than the sum of their parts due to European states’ persistent lack of cooperation in sensitive defense areas. This situation could embolden Russia to take more aggressive steps if it believes it can avoid detection from space-based assets.

European states have moved to increase their presence in space over the last five years. The European Union’s Copernicus and Galileo satellites, efforts by France and Germany to launch more satellite constellations, and new launch sites in Norway, Sweden, the UK, and Portugal, all serve to increase Europe’s presence in space. As European states ramp up their presence in space, they must also ensure that they make the most effective use of the assets they deploy. At present, European states lack a mechanism to fuse different states’ satellite data into a complete picture. The EU’s Intelligence and Situation Centre and Military Staff Intelligence Directorate can only analyze the information member states choose to provide — not everything collected is shared. This slows down the intelligence process as there is nothing to prevent countries from analyzing the same pieces of data without notifying each other. 

European states should use the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) mechanism to facilitate intelligence and information sharing between member states. PESCO is an EU tool that allows member states and other allies like the UK to jointly develop defense projects that they might not have otherwise. In this vein, more European states should join the Common Hub for Governmental Imagery (CoHGI). CoHGI seeks to enable sharing of classified military satellite imagery between member states as well as EU institutions. CoHGI would create a secure hub for each participating nation to share its satellite data to enhance the other participants’ situational awareness, as well as enabling EU-operated satellites such as Galileo to contribute. This would directly enable much of the data sharing European states need to maximize their satellites’ effectiveness.

Still, CoHGI has important limitations. It only aims to facilitate information sharing up to the Secret level, meaning the most sensitive data cannot be shared through CoHGI. Space data is notoriously highly classified — even the U.S. struggles to ensure that enough satellite data reaches its own agencies due to overclassification. European states should learn from America’s classification woes and proactively work to establish trust and coordination between their intelligence institutions that would enable efficient sharing of more data to maximize their impact in the space ISR realm.

In addition, states with significant or growing space intelligence platforms such as Sweden, Poland and the UK are absent from CoHGI. Sweden and Poland, as EU member states, can easily choose to join the project at any time, but the UK should also consider joining. PESCO allows for non-EU states to join projects of interest under certain conditions, all of which the UK meets. The UK already participates in the PESCO Military Mobility project, and the recent Security and Defense Partnership signed between the UK and EU identifies space as an area in which to strengthen cooperation. British engagement in space is already considerable — its ISTARI constellation represents a considerable investment in space ISR capabilities. Though it would need to be careful to balance its Five Eyes commitments with its CoHGI engagement, the benefits would be well worth it as a force multiplier for European states’ ability to track and deter Russian aggression. 

European states need to overcome the fragmentation of effort and overclassification of data that inhibits their ability to replace American intelligence data. By more seamlessly sharing classified satellite data, European states will find themselves in a much stronger position to deter Russian aggression in return for relatively little pressure on their budgets. By making better use of the capabilities they already have, European states can turn the total of their space apparatus into something greater than the sum of their satellites, enabling a more nimble, unified response to Russian aggression and acting to deter it before it escalates into a full-blown crisis. 

Cameron Olbert is the Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Intern in the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. His research spans a range of topics including air and space power theory and European defense.

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