[mytailorisrich]

Yes, that's pretty much what the quote form the article says. And then IRIS² constellation will be fully an EU system that member states will be able to use. Sounds like a reduction of sovereignty to me at least for the countries that have their own capabilities.

[spookie]

I believe, as an european, that isn't much of a concern. We are very coupled to one another, plenty have family ties with other european citizens, share similar languages within immediate neighbours, and are culturally similar. Even religion is mostly shared. Of course, each has its own identity, not saying this isn't the case.

But without unity each one of us would just be yet another small country with a declining population, unity gives us strength.

The US leadership today thinks they are powerful enough by themselves. Quite a different perspective. Hence why sovereignty there seems to have a more patriotic meaning. I'm sure the states themselves still see the value of collaborating between themselves however.

[bdauvergne]

France will keep having its own satellites anyway for some time and Eutelsat is french too, so for France not so much. I do not about the other countries having current sovereign solutions. But if you take France, Germany and Italy, they already share some military space stuff like observation satellite of optical and SAR kind (france provided the optical part, and italy/germany developed and operate the SAR satellites).