The EU Space Act’s New Council Text: A Narrower Defence Carve-Out, Self-Certification and ‘Verification’ for Foreign Operators

The EU Space Act has been in Council working party negotiations since the Commission proposed it on 25 June 2025. Every few months the rotating Presidency circulates a fresh compromise text, and operators outside Europe read it to see how much of the Regulation will reach them. The Irish Presidency’s version of 29 October 2026 rewrites several of the parts that decide who is caught.

The United States Office of Space Commerce flagged the text the next day in its EU Space Act update, saying the Commerce and State Departments are reviewing it and inviting US companies to send feedback or proposed redlines.

What was circulated

The document is Council note 15118/26, a “Presidency compromise text” in clean version, sent to delegations “with a view to the meeting of 3 November 2026”. It replaces the Cypriot Presidency’s text of 30 March 2026. The cover note records that “all delegations have entered a scrutiny reservation”, which is the standard way of saying nothing is agreed yet.

The Commission’s own EU Space Act page still describes the proposal as under negotiation. In Parliament, the Legislative Train page, last updated on 20 September 2026, lists a draft report by rapporteur Elena Donazzan but no committee vote. So this is a Council working document, not a Council position, and certainly not law. Our EU Space Act explainer sets out the structure of the original proposal; what follows is what has moved since March.

Two things have not moved. The text still provides that the Regulation “shall apply from” 36 months after entry into force, and it still excludes space objects launched before that date. Anything already in orbit when the rules start is grandfathered.

The defence carve-out has been narrowed

This is the change I would read first. In the March text, Article 2(3) took out of scope both space objects “exclusively used for defence or national security purposes” and space objects “temporarily used for the conduct of operations related to defence or national security, for the duration of those operations”.

The Irish text splits that in two. Point (-a) of Article 2(3) now excludes space objects that serve “exclusively” to provide services or data to defence or national security authorities, that are “operated by or under the control of military or defence authorities for the entire lifetime of the space object”, or that “are owned by the military or defence authorities”. That is a clearer three-limb test than the old phrase “exclusively used”.

The temporary case has moved to a new Article 2(3a). Commercial satellites “used temporarily for conducting defence or military operations or are placed temporarily under operational control” of defence or national security authorities are no longer outside the Regulation. They are instead “exempted from the requirements laid down in Title IV, in particular Article 63, for the duration of those operations.” Title IV holds the technical requirements, and Article 63 is the trackability rule, which requires operators to make a spacecraft trackable and to send orbital data, including planned manoeuvres, to the EU collision avoidance service.

So a commercial operator whose satellites support a military customer for a period stays inside the Regulation for certification and supervision, with relief only from the operational rules while the military work lasts. For dual-use constellations that is a real tightening, and I expect it to be argued over.

Governments can self-certify

A new Article 7a lets a Member State “opt to self-certify, through a national procedure without the involvement of a QTB”, compliance with the spacecraft technical requirements where a “governmental entity” owns the majority of the platform, owns all the payloads, performs the operation, owns or effectively controls the majority of a constellation, or is party to a joint mission with a third-country public entity.

The definition of “governmental entity” is tight. It must be part of or wholly owned by a government, must not “carry on a trade or business”, must be accountable to that government and must have its assets vest in the government on dissolution. A State-owned company that sells services commercially would not qualify.

The point is to keep national space agencies and their institutional missions out of the qualified technical body (QTB) process that private operators go through.

Third-country operators: “verification” and an export control escape valve

Under Article 14, a third-country operator may provide operational space services or space-based data in the Union “only if” those services are entered in the Union Repository for Space Activities (URSA). The March text called the route to that entry “EUSA registration”. The Irish text calls it “EUSA verification” under a rewritten Article 17. The procedure is similar: the operator applies to the Commission, the EU Agency for the Space Programme assesses the file, issues a reasoned opinion within five months of confirming the file is complete, and the Commission decides within 12 months of receipt.

Two changes matter. First, the application must now name the operator’s legal representative under Article 16a, who must be designated “before providing operational space services in the Union”. Second, a new paragraph (-1b) provides that evidence “which cannot be sent by a third-country space operator to the Agency due to national export control legislation shall be replaced by an attestation by the relevant national authority certifying the relevant compliance.” For US operators whose technical data is caught by ITAR or the EAR, that is the most practical clause in the document. It also puts the burden on their home regulator to vouch for them, which raises the question of which US agency would sign such an attestation. Our piece on who regulates space in the US explains why that is not an easy question.

The equivalence route in Article 17a has also been loosened. In March, an operator from a jurisdiction with an equivalence decision or an international agreement was deemed compliant “when they are in possession of a national authorisation from that third country.” The Irish text deems it compliant where its activities are “authorised or otherwise lawfully carried out under the legal and supervisory framework of that third country.” That would accommodate countries where some activities are lawful without a specific licence. The URSA entry would then track the home authorisation, rising and falling with the home regulator’s decisions.

Article 15 still applies a defined list of the Regulation’s requirements to foreign spacecraft operators, including trackability, disposal and the life-cycle assessment, and requires them to use a collision avoidance provider with the technical means set out in Annex IV. The joint TraCSS and EU SST study in our report on space traffic data sharing is the kind of arrangement that could make that easier to meet.

Environmental footprint becomes life-cycle assessment

The March text required every Union operator to calculate an “Environmental Footprint” under a Commission method and to submit, with its application, the aggregated and disaggregated datasets it used, together with proof the Commission had received them.

The Irish text renames Articles 96 and 97 “Life-cycle assessment”. Operators would submit a life-cycle assessment study following “accepted international practices”, covering design, manufacture, operation and end of life. Using the Union environmental footprint method becomes voluntary, and Article 99 now says operators and suppliers “may, on a voluntary basis” make datasets available to the Commission. For manufacturers wary of handing supply chain data to Brussels, that is a substantial concession.

Servicing, enforcement and the smaller changes

The in-space servicing chapter has changed in two directions. The March text applied the servicing requirements from 1 January 2034. The Irish text instead asks the Commission to publish an assessment of the technological and market readiness of in-space operations and services by 30 June 2032, and the requirements bite only within 18 months after a positive report. At the same time, the rule that Union-owned spacecraft carry interfaces for servicing now starts at 50 kg, down from 600 kg.

On enforcement, a new Article 39a requires Member States to “organise and carry out market surveillance for space activities” through their market surveillance authorities under Regulation (EU) 2019/1020. The Commission’s own fining power in Article 56 is now capped at “2 % of the total worldwide annual turnover”. The March text had allowed up to twice the profits gained or losses avoided, with 2% of turnover as the fallback. Mission extension requests, due six months before a mission’s planned end, are folded into the certification procedure.

The recitals record that 13 Member States already have their own space legislation. Our guide to debris mitigation rules shows how the Act’s disposal and passivation requirements compare with the IADC and UN guidelines those national laws already use.

Why it matters outside Europe

The legal basis is still Article 114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the internal market article, and the recitals tie the Regulation to the authorisation duty in Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty. That is what lets the Act reach an operator in Colorado or Bangalore that never launches from Europe but sells data or connectivity to European customers. This text keeps that reach, eases the procedure for foreign operators and tightens it for dual-use satellites.

What I would watch

The first is the 3 November working party. If delegations accept the Irish wording on the defence carve-out, it is likely to survive into the Council’s mandate. If several Member States with defence-heavy space programmes push back, expect the temporary-use exemption to widen again.

The second is the export control attestation. It only works if a national authority is willing to certify compliance on someone else’s behalf. Watch whether the US government says it will, and which agency it nominates.

The third is Parliament. Until the ITRE committee votes, nobody knows how far apart the institutions are on deadlines, on the defence carve-out or on the treatment of foreign operators. Those will be the trilogue issues.

The fourth is equivalence. The softer wording in Article 17a matters only if the Commission adopts equivalence decisions or agreements with major space nations. None exists yet.

Anuj KumarEditor-in-Chief

Anuj Kumar is the founder of Legal Desire Media and publishes Fashion Law Journal and Space Law Journal.

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