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EN

Official Journal of the European Union
17.3.2023

One of the components of the Union Space Programme established by Regulation EU 2021/696 of the European Parliament and of the Council 2 is GOVSATCOM, which aims to ensure the long-term availability of reliable, secure, scalable and cost-effective satellite communications services for GOVSATCOM users. Regulation EU 2021/696 envisages that in a first phase of the GOVSATCOM component, until approximately 2025, existing capacity would be pooled and shared through the GOVSATCOM Hub. In that context, the Commission is to procure GOVSATCOM capacities from Member States with national systems and space capacities and from commercial satellite communication or service providers, taking into account the essential security interests of the Union.

In that first phase, GOVSATCOM services are to be introduced on the basis of a step-by-step approach, in light of the scaling up of the GOVSATCOM Hub infrastructure capabilities. That approach is also based on the premise that if in the course of the first phase a detailed analysis of future supply and demand reveals that it was insufficient to cover the evolving demand, it will be necessary to move to a second phase and develop additional bespoke space infrastructure or capacities through cooperation with the private sector, for example with Union satellite operators.

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On 22 March 2017, the Councils Political and Security Committee endorsed the High Level Civil Military User Needs for Governmental Satellite Communications GOVSATCOM, which were prepared by the European External Action Service EEAS and with which the military users requirements identified by the European Defence Agency in its Common Staff Target adopted in 2013 and the civilian user needs collected by the Commission have been merged. Subsequent analyses by the Commission showed that the Unions current satellite communication offer, on the basis of capacities from Member States with national systems as well as the private sector, cannot meet certain new needs of the governmental demand which are moving towards higher security solutions, low latency and global coverage. Those needs should be monitored and reassessed regularly.

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Recent technical progress has allowed non-geostationary-orbit NGSO communications constellations to emerge and gradually offer high-speed and low latency connectivity services. There is therefore a window of opportunity for addressing the evolving needs of government-authorised users by developing and deploying additional infrastructure as filings for the frequencies with the International Telecommunication Union which are necessary to provide the required services are currently available within the Union. If not used, those filings for the frequencies will become obsolete and be attributed to other players. As frequencies and orbital slots are an increasingly scarce resource, the Commission, through an open and transparent process with the Member States, should seize this opportunity to conclude with the Member States providing the filings for the frequencies dedicated licensing agreements for the provision of governmental services based on the governmental infrastructure. The private sector is responsible for obtaining the rights on filings for the frequencies required for the provision of commercial services.

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There is growing demand by the Unions governmental actors for secure and reliable spaced-based satellite communication services, particularly because they are the most viable option in the absence of ground-based communication systems or where they are disrupted or unreliable. Affordable and cost-effective access to satellite communication is also indispensable in areas where there is no terrestrial infrastructure, including over oceans, in airspace, in remote areas and where terrestrial infrastructure faces serious outage or cannot be trusted in crisis situations. Satellite communication can increase the overall resilience of communication networks, for example offering an alternative in the case of physical attacks or cyberattacks on local terrestrial infrastructure, accidents or natural or man-made disasters.

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The Union should ensure the provision of resilient, global, secure, protected, uninterrupted, guaranteed and flexible satellite communication solutions for evolving governmental needs and requirements, built on a Union technological and industrial base, in order to increase the resilience of Member States and Union institutions operations.

2 Regulation EU 2021/696 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 April 2021 establishing the Union Space Programme and the European Union Agency for the Space Programme and repealing Regulations EU No 912/2010, EU No 1285/2013 and EU No 377/2014 and Decision No 541/2014/EU OJ L 170, 12.5.2021, p. 69.