This thesis aims to explore the implications of the European Union’s (EU) Space Strategy for Security and Defence (2023) as well as the Strategic Compass for Security and Defense (2022). By examining the concept of power in relation to space and the EU’s balance between traditional power perspectives as well as normative values, it aims to clarify the EU’s role and capacity as a global actor in a strategically important and militarized domain. Furthermore, it evaluates the theoretical frameworks of Astropolitik and Normative Power Europe’s ability to explain the EU’s space policy and thus, its ambitions within the domain. The thesis aims both to illuminate the EU’s role and strategy in the evolving space environment and to critically examine and compare the relevance of these theories for understanding the exercise of power and norm-making in this complex and rapidly changing domain. This analysis is conducted through a qualitative content analysis, applied inductively to the material.
The analysis of the EU’s Space Strategy for Security and Defence as well as the Strategic Compass for Security and Defense shows the Union is to act as a normative enforcement, with the aim of promoting a peaceful and rules-based order in the space domain. This has been a consistent theme in the analysis. Cooperation with other actors in the space domain have also been emphasized. The EU believes that cooperation in the space domain promotes peace while stimulating new innovation and more advanced technological development. Other themes representing more traditional power perspectives have also been found. Competitiveness has been one such. The EU emphasises the importance of competitive systems in the space domain and strategic autonomy in the form of development of EU’s own resources have also been discussed.