Constitutionalisation of Space by the European Union: A Perspective

This chapter reviews the position of the European Union as a supranational community of states that has crafted its competence to deliver Union-own space programmes, whilst respecting the domain of space as a preserve of its sovereign Member States in the field of international space law. In illustrating the EU’s competence to regulate activities in the space sector, in parallel to its Member States, the paper reviews the steps by which the EU has contributed towards developments in space law, as it converges with separate, digital-market driven rules of data protection, open data and artificial intelligence. The value of legal provisions in setting out the best possible regulatory models, equally applicable to the Union, is that they serve legal certainty and in the context of space activities, sustainability of current and future operations.