Germany touts pan-German space command amid European push to supplant US tech

VIENNA — Germany’s defense minister used a rare four-nation gathering of German-speaking defense chiefs this week to push forward plans for a European military space command, calling on close partners including Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg, to help shape the initiative rather than simply join it.

Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister, announced at a press conference in Berlin that Germany is developing a European Space Component Command alongside a Weltraumakademie − a multilateral space training academy − and insisted that partner nations will be “embedded in the design phase” rather than presented with finished structures.

The meeting, billed as the first “DACH+L” format, expanding the traditional German-Austrian-Swiss defense dialogue to include Luxembourg, served as a platform for Pistorius to demonstrate traction on Germany’s €35 billion ($40.7 billion) military space investment pledged last fall. That program spans encrypted low-earth-orbit satellite constellations, military-grade launch capacity, and an expanded Space Command within the Bundeswehr.

Austria’s Defense Minister Claudia Tanner reaffirmed that Austria plans to put three operationally designated military satellites plus a test object into orbit next year, developed partly with Austrian startups. The program centers on two projects: LEO2VLEO, a joint initiative with the Netherlands covering imaging and navigation in very low Earth orbit, and BEACONSAT, an Austrian navigation satellite built for under €1 million ($1.16 million). Tanner said the satellites would be made available to partners and framed the push as essential for communications independence in a crisis.

Austria is neutral by constitution, though some have questioned how its deepening defense ties with European neighbors can be squared with this tradition and legal requirement.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (right to left) is pictured with his counterparts from Austria, Klaudia Tanner; Switzerland, Martin Pfister; and Luxembourg, Yuriko Backes, at the Ministry of Defense in Berlin on May 18, 2026. (Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Luxembourg’s Defense Minister Yuriko Backes, attending a DACH meeting for the first time, pointed to her country’s niche: established SATcom and Earth observation expertise that Luxembourg is “very willing to make available to allies and partners.” She and Tanner both referenced a forthcoming cooperation deal between the two countries on satellite use in July, without elaborating.

Swiss Federal Councilor Martin Pfister noted that there is no domain where Europe faces a greater dependency on non-European technology providers than in the space domain. “It is not possible for one country to solve this alone,” he said, though he called out Swiss state-owned company Beyond Gravity as a potential industrial contributor to a European solution.

Switzerland, too, has bent the limits of its longstanding neutrality to deepen its integration into European defense projects since the war in Ukraine. The joint accession of both Austria and Switzerland to the German-led European Sky Shield Initiative in 2023 was a prime example of this new thinking.

The latest moves signal a further deepening of these Central European defense ties. The conference alone was a remarkable signal, expanding the more established German-Austrian-Swsiss DACH format to Luxembourg as a fourth member.

What Monday’s meeting produced in concrete terms was modest: a reaffirmation of existing cooperation threads, a cyber exercise result − Luxembourg, together with the three other German-speaking countries, placed second at NATO’s Locked Shields event under German leadership in April − and political momentum behind space initiatives that remain largely conceptual. But the message was still clear: German-speaking Europe is serious about wanting to become a player in space, and the push for independence from the U.S. has gained additional momentum.

Linus Höller is Defense News' Europe correspondent and OSINT investigator. He reports on the arms deals, sanctions, and geopolitics shaping Europe and the world. He holds master’s degrees in WMD nonproliferation, terrorism studies, and international relations, and works in four languages: English, German, Russian, and Spanish.

维也纳——本周，德国国防部长利用德语区四国国防部长罕见的会议，推进建立欧洲军事太空司令部的计划，呼吁奥地利、瑞士和卢森堡等亲密伙伴帮助制定这项倡议，而不仅仅是加入其中。

德国国防部长鲍里斯·皮斯托里乌斯在柏林举行的新闻发布会上宣布，德国正在与世界太空学院（一所多边太空训练学院）合作，建立欧洲太空作战司令部，并强调伙伴国家将“参与设计阶段”，而不是直接接受已完成的架构。

此次会议被誉为首次“DACH+L”模式，将传统的德奥瑞防务对话扩展至卢森堡，为皮斯托瑞斯提供了一个平台，展示德国去年秋季承诺的350亿欧元（407亿美元）军事航天投资的进展情况。该计划涵盖加密的低地球轨道卫星星座、军用级发射能力以及联邦国防军内部扩建的太空司令部。

奥地利国防部长克劳迪娅·坦纳重申，奥地利计划明年将三颗已投入使用的军用卫星和一颗测试卫星送入轨道，这些卫星部分由奥地利初创企业参与研发。该计划的核心是两个项目：一是与荷兰合作的LEO2VLEO项目，该项目涵盖超低地球轨道成像和导航；二是奥地利自主研发的导航卫星BEACONSAT，造价低于100万欧元（约合116万美元）。坦纳表示，这些卫星将向合作伙伴开放，并强调此举对于危机时期的通信独立至关重要。

奥地利宪法规定奥地利保持中立，但有人质疑，奥地利与欧洲邻国日益密切的防务关系如何与这一传统和法律要求相协调。

2026年5月18日，德国国防部长鲍里斯·皮斯托瑞斯（从右至左）与奥地利国防部长克劳迪娅·坦纳、瑞士国防部长马丁·普菲斯特和卢森堡国防部长尤里科·巴克斯在柏林国防部合影。（图片来源：Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images）

卢森堡国防部长尤里科·巴克斯首次出席德语区会议，她指出卢森堡的优势在于其成熟的卫星通信和地球观测技术，卢森堡“非常愿意向盟友和伙伴提供这些技术”。她和坦纳都提到了两国将于7月达成一项关于卫星使用的合作协议，但并未详细说明。

瑞士联邦委员马丁·普菲斯特指出，在所有领域中，欧洲对非欧洲技术供应商的依赖程度最高，莫过于航天领域。“任何一个国家都无法独自解决这个问题，”他说道，同时他也提到了瑞士国有企业“超越重力”（Beyond Gravity），认为该公司有可能为欧洲解决方案做出产业贡献。

自乌克兰战争以来，瑞士也突破了其长期以来奉行的中立原则，深化融入欧洲防务项目。奥地利和瑞士于2023年共同加入由德国主导的“欧洲天空之盾”倡议，便是这种新思路的典型例证。

最新举措表明中欧防务关系进一步深化。仅此次会议本身就是一个显著的信号，它将德奥瑞三国（DACH）这一更为成熟的防务合作机制扩展至卢森堡，使其成为第四个成员国。

周一的会议在具体成果上并不突出：重申了现有的合作方向，网络演习取得了一定成果——卢森堡与其他三个德语国家一起，在4月份由德国领导的北约“锁定盾牌”演习中名列第二——以及推动了一些仍处于概念阶段的太空倡议的政治动力。但传递的信息依然明确：德语区欧洲认真致力于成为太空领域的重要参与者，并且摆脱对美国的依赖的呼声也进一步高涨。

林努斯·霍勒是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者和开源情报调查员。他报道影响欧洲乃至全球的军火交易、制裁和地缘政治。他拥有大规模杀伤性武器不扩散、恐怖主义研究和国际关系三个硕士学位，并精通英语、德语、俄语和西班牙语四种语言。