We have an important number of wake-up calls around Europe’s sovereignty and future. The latest one is the cry of European astronauts for the continent to develop its own crewed spaceflight vehicle.
While everyone seems to have their eyes on Space X and Russian keep milking their decades-old technologies, China is becoming the new space leader and even planning for a moon and a mars mission. India is also slowly coming along and US incumbents such as Boeing are getting back in the space race with their Starliner capsule?
Nuclear and renewable energy, digital platforms, road and rail infrastructure, payment systems, quantum computing, biotech, agtech and foodtech, pharmaceuticals… Not a single key technology infrastructure is currently led by European ventures, conglomerates, or utilities.
The irony of course is that in many cases we are the ones to make the science advance, and we deem that it’s a success. We are supposed to have invented TV and the internet to a large extent, but are scientific bragging rights the only end-game for Europe?