Study in support of the impact assessment of an EU GOVSATCOM initiative : final report

The European Union Governmental Satellite Communications (EU GOVSATCOM) initiative aims at providing secured communication capacity to EU governmental stakeholders that need it for various missions in the fields of security, defence, humanitarian aid, emergency response and diplomatic communications. Executed at the crossroad between three EU policy areas (space, defence and security), it is considered to create a link between the growing EU governmental needs for communication capacity and the capabilities ensured by existing and planned satellite communication (SatCom) systems. The initiative is fully coherent with the Global Strategy for the European Union's Foreign and Security Policy as it aims at enhancing the Union's positioning as a global security actor. In design process of the EU GOVSATCOM initiative, the European Commission is leading an impact assessment study to examine the several potential governance configurations that would allow to satisfy the needs expressed in the High Level Civil Military User Needs for Governmental Satellite Communications and to bring the maximum benefits to the EU industry and to other impacted EU stakeholders. This study serves as an input to the European Commission's own assessment, and had the objective to assess and describe the impacts of the different governance options considered for the initiative. The identification of a preferred option for the EU GOVSATCOM initiative was out of scope, and will be executed in the European Commission's own assessment.