THE EUROPEAN – SECURITY AND DEFENCE UNION
Actionable geospatial intelligence analysis
photo: © SatCen
EU Satellite Centre: operational support to the CFSP and C by Sorin Ducaru, Director of the European Union Satellite Centre (SatCen), Madrid
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ith nearly 30 years since its foundation, the EU Satellite Centre (SatCen) has established itself as the prime provider of geospatial intelligence analysis for EU external action. The Centre in Torrejon near Madrid supports the collective decision making in Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) as well as EU missions and operations. The agency is tasked with providing products and services, namely from the exploitation of spacebased earth observation imagery data and relevant collateral data.
Operational EU ambitions SatCen services respond to the EU requirements described in the 2016 Global Strategy for the Foreign and Security Policy. Its operational readiness has just been officially confirmed by the first-ever SatCen board meeting at ministerial level, held on 6 May 2021. The EU ministers provided a strong political impulse to align the Centre’s evolution with the EU’s increased level of ambition in the fields of space, security and defence. SatCen analysis covers military capabilities, humanitarian aid, support to evacuation operations, monitoring of weapons of
mass destruction, critical infrastructures, and climate change related security, to name just a few. The Centre also contributes directly to the forthcoming Strategic Compass. The core of SatCen’s mission is to support EU crisis management through its geospatial analysis. The agency strengthens European resilience, reflected in its operational lessons learned during crises like the ongoing pandemic, as well as through its role in the Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) activities. The Centre helps to reinforce EU partnerships through the mandated support for the UN, OSCE and OPCW. In addition, SatCen continuously invests in capability development to remain at the cutting edge of relevant technological developments, like with Artificial Intelligence and Big Data from space. SatCen’s primary source of satellite data are commercial providers. The share from European sources has steadily increased from a mere 6% in 2010 to around 75% today. The Centre also benefits from agreements with Member States allowing access to high-quality governmental satellite imagery. Collateral data complementing the imagery analysis is acquired from open sources and provided by users of SatCen services. The Centre operates under the political supervision of the EU Political and Security Committee (PSC) and the operational direction of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign
Ambassador Sorin Dumitru Ducaru has been the Director of the European Union Satellite Centre (SatCen) since June 2019. He has previously held the position of NATO Assistant Secretary General and Head of the NATO
photo: © SatCen
Emerging Security Challenges Division, as well as the positions
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of Romania’s ambassador to NATO, USA and to the UN in New York. He also assumed various positions in the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
