Role of the European Commission in framing European space policy

Introduction In the Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force on 1 December 2009, space was for the first time explicitly mentioned as a direct and shared competence of the EU (Article 4.3 and 189). Although no institution is mentioned in terms of providing leadership in this domain, or being solely responsible for steering developments, it is in practice the European Commission, the EU’s policy entrepreneur, which is largely responsible for shaping space policy. This chapter traces the way in which the Commission has framed (and reframed) the issue of EU space programmes and services in recent years. It investigates how the agenda-setter has ‘talked about’ space policy, with a particular focus on Galileo and Copernicus, examining how the Commission’s own institutional discourse – as revealed in its communications throughout the programme’s ‘definition’ and ‘implementation’ phases – has evolved over time by way of ‘frame sets’. In so doing, it shows how the EU’s agenda-setting executive has chosen to present the issue of space involvement as politically, technologically and economically desirable for the EU, and how it has sought to persuade decision-makers, European taxpayers and even itself of its cross-policy relevance and potential benefits.