Last Friday, 13 October, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg has held, in the framework of its initiative “Spanish Presidency series”, a breakfast-debate with Marta March Almela, Counsellor for Science, Innovation and Space in the Permanent Representation of Spain to the EU. The presentation focused on the priorities of the Spanish Presidency in the field of space policy.

The president of the Chamber, Pablo López-Álvarez, gave a brief welcome speech to the attendees, highlighting March’s professional career and reviewing the critical moment the sector is going through in Spain thanks to the recent successful launch of the Miura 1, the first recoverable launch vehicle in Europe.

Next, it was Fernando Horcada, director of European programmes at Sener Aerospace, who took the floor to introduce the company, which sponsored the event. Horcada explained the work of Sener, a leading company in the sector, and their investment of more than 15 million euros a year in technological development.

Marta March then began her speech by reviewing the main points of the Conclusions of the Council of the European Union entitled “An equitable and sustainable use of space”, which are being followed during the Spanish Presidency.

During the speech, she highlighted the urgent need to improve the security and safety of EU space infrastructures, as well as the resilience of aerospace systems, through the implementation of the European Space Strategy for Security and Defence recently developed by the Commission.

The Counsellor also talked about the new sustainability criteria that the European Space Agency is implementing in its practices, the imperative need to guarantee the European Union’s autonomous access to space and the pending task of defining the role of the Member States in the space field.

At the end of the presentation, there was an extensive question and answer session on issues such as what the EU’s role in space should be and what could be done to combat the current inflation in dealing with the high development costs of the aerospace industry, among others.