The EU’s effort to expand its regulatory reach farther than ever before pits its policy wonks against a familiar foe: MAGA’s Elon Musk.

The SpaceX billionaire is no stranger to a scrap with Brussels and, after a two-year wait, the European Commission finally launched its EU Space Act on Wednesday, potentially teeing up the next round of wrangling. The rules aim to set what could quickly become a global benchmark for regulating rocket launches and the tens of thousands of satellites orbiting Earth.

That’s a problem for Musk. SpaceX dominates the market for space-based internet after rapidly launching scores of satellites as part of its Starlink network. This triggered complaints about space debris, light pollution, and the company’s entanglement in Ukraine’s war against Russian invaders.

Efforts to tell SpaceX it needs to comply with new sustainability standards and some basic rules of the road are unlikely to sit well with a tech boss used to doing his own thing. The scrap could get feisty if the EU follows through with making market access for Starlink services contingent on compliance, as expected.

For context: attempts to rein in Musk’s operations rarely go smoothly. He famously fired zingers at former Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton (the original architect of the space law push) and the commissioner in charge of media freedom, Věra Jourová, over EU efforts to impose content moderation rules on his social media platform X.

And don’t expect much muscle from Brussels if Musk pushes back against the space reg. So far, the bloc’s best answer to America’s dominance in space – a so-called “Space Team Europe” – is an attempt to “federate European space-related excellence”. In practice, that means stitching together disparate national interests and relying on the bloc’s only serious launch site: France’s spaceport in South America, nestled in French Guiana.

More seriously, the EU is already offering the likes of Musk a major concession. The rules are unlikely to apply to anything launched before 2030, which means that the thousands of satellites that make up Starlink won’t be covered. 

"Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win," Mark Rutte told Trump.

Anti-corruption warrior lands in court – An NGO specialised in detecting corruption in the Western Balkans has been ordered to repay nearly €240,000 in grant funding. The tables have turned against the former ally of EU institutions, offering a cautionary tale of the risks small civil society organisations face when EU funding, political expectations, and informal understandings collide.

EU launches regulatory rocket – The Commission unveiled a landmark space law that will apply to the upcoming launches of thousands of satellites. But it will likely go down like a lead balloon with non-EU companies already venturing into the burgeoning space economy.

EU funds > logging in Slovakia – Plans to open protected forests to logging have been scrapped by Bratislava, for fear of forfeiting hundreds of millions of euros in EU funding.

Protecting minors from smoking and alcohol – Greece's health ministry has submitted a bill to parliament aimed at protecting minors from tobacco and alcohol. It would ban the sale, offer, or distribution of tobacco and alcohol to minors, and mandate age verification systems at all points of sale.

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