Germany, Item 3

UNCOPUOS Scientific and Technical Subcommittee
62nd Session, Vienna, 3–14 February 2025

Statement by Germany on
Agenda item 3: General Exchange of Views

Madam Chair,

We are glad to see you back at the podium for the second year of your leadership of this Subcommittee and we again assure you of our full support and cooperation. We also thank the Office for Outer Space Affairs for the excellent preparation of this year’s session. But we also wish to use this opportunity to express that we are very saddened about the passing away of Amb. Andrzej Misztal and will remember not only his outstanding work and service to COPUOS, but also his kindness and openness in all personal encounters.

Distinguished delegates,

in September 2024, world leaders at the United Nations in New York adopted the „UN Pact for the Future“, an ambitious document to strengthen the international multilateral system with the United Nations at its core, and make it fit for the future. Action 56 of the Pact addresses international cooperation for the exploration and use of outer space. It reaffirms the importance of the Outer Space Treaty and calls for discussions on the establishment of new frameworks for space traffic, space debris and space resources through COPUOS. It also calls for greater engagement of private and civil society stakeholders to contribute to intergovernmental processes.

As co-facilitator of the negotiations of the Pact alongside Namibia, Germany was very happy to see the successful adoption of the Pact, and we are determined to make a positive contribution to the implementation of its actions, including Action 56. Following the Summit of the Future last year, the Office for Outer Space Affairs, together with Germany, Peru and the United Arab Emirates, hosted the World Space Forum 2024 in Bonn, Germany. The Forum brought together representatives from COPUOS member states with the wider space community, offering the first opportunity to discuss the Pact for the Future and the next steps ahead. We thank all participants including representatives from COPUOS Member States who have joined us and shared their perspectives on the multilateral way forward on space governance. It is now paramount to take the next steps and that words are followed by actions. In order to facilitate possible follow-ups, we have provided key take-aways from these discussions in a conference room paper.

The Pact addresses the crucial topics of space governance today. Space activities are more innovative, dynamic and fast-paced than ever before and this requires adequate and effective governance responses. In particular the sustainable use of outer space and related questions on how to address the increasing space traffic has seen a growing interest in the international community over the past year. We thank the Office for Outer Space Affairs for conducting the first UN Space Sustainability Days, which saw important sharing of knowledge but also discussions on the way ahead. Germany has started discussions on space traffic at the Legal Subcommittee last year, and we also see an important role for the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee on this issue that we look forward to explore during the next two weeks. Most importantly, there is a growing recognition that we need to work on governance solutions to address challenges of space sustainability, and that COPUOS is the right place to develop them. This is especially important in light of the growing interest of other forums and institutions to fill the vacuum that we leave if COPUOS does not come up with solutions.

Madam Chair,

We have two years left in the workplan of the Working Group on the Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities. We were happy to see, and have ourselves contributed to, the vast amount of inputs to the table that the Working Group has developed and we welcome the list of repeated themes and possible groupings of ideas on challenges that the Chair has extracted from the inputs received. We hope that over the next two weeks, we will have focused discussions on these issues and not lose ourselves in prolonged procedural debates so that next year, we can finalize a substantive and meaningful report that reflects the large amount of work undertaken by the Working Group.
We also look forward to our discussions under the new agenda item on dark and quiet skies, astronomy and large constellations. Germany has joined the Group of Friends that was founded last year by Chile and Spain, and which has produced a conference room paper that outlines initial ideas and recommendations on mitigating the impacts of large constellations on astronomy. We hope that the paper can inspire discussions on the next steps ahead for this important issue.

Madam Chair,

We would like to conclude our statement by thanking the Secretariat for providing non-papers with initial thoughts and ideas for a fourth UN Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Use of Outer Space, UNISPACE IV, as well as on the upcoming mid-term review of the „Space2030“ Agenda. These non-papers provide a good basis for the further development of both processes and we look forward to discussing in this Subcommittee how we can make them a success. In particular, it will be important to ensure that the convening of a UNISPACE IV is linked to concrete goals and actions that provide real added value to the work of COPUOS, to international cooperation on space issues and to the shaping of space governance.

With that, I thank you for your kind attention.