The EU’s Defence and Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius says he has no objection to mergers in the satellite and space production sector. Speaking on April 11th at the New Economy Forum’s Europa Forum in Brussels, he said he was in favour or supporting champions, although did not specifically mention the Airbus and Thales Alenia merger reports.Commissioner Kubilius asked rhetorically: “How we can compete? We should not be afraid of scaling up and bringing the consolidation of companies, to get to a size that will allow them to compete globally.”He stressed that his office would also take care of SME businesses in the sector, but welcomed what he said was a new opportunity in the space industry. “We see in space and defense a lot of new industry coming, very agile and dynamic. But there is a balance between building new champions and how to leave space for startups. We can do it.”However, he specifically referenced how far behind Europe had fallen in its rocket launch capability, which he described as a “deep crisis”.“We lost the competition to Elon Musk and now we need to catch up. We are looking to new industries and new ways of developing our launch capabilities,” he noted.
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