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The stakes have rarely, if ever, been higher when ministers representing European Space Agency (ESA) member states convene later this month for their triennial summit to hammer out funding plans.

International competition is heating up and new relationships are emerging, while others are at risk of fraying. As one official put it: “Do we chose ambition, or do we cede ground to others?”

ESA’s council meeting at the ministerial level, or CM25, is set to unfold in Bremen, Germany, on Nov. 26-27. There are two new drivers that have emerged in recent months that have elevated the importance of CM25 and driven a rethinking of the roughly €22 billion ($25.6 billion) funding proposal. One is the European Union’s (EU) ambition to boost its military space capabilities, which has led ESA to seek ways to support the effort. The other is the Trump administration’s 2026 budget proposal for NASA, which includes sweeping cuts that would impact some ESA missions.

With just days to go, ESA officials are meeting once more on Nov. 17 to smooth out differences and finalize the funding proposal. Individual states will sign on to various programs and make funding pledges, dictating the agenda for ESA in the coming years.

The meeting in Bremen will cap a busy two weeks for the space industry. It will follow the Dubai Airshow, where space is on the agenda, with the United Arab Emirates among the countries with big ambitions in the domain. And unfolding in parallel with the ESA ministerial, the Space Tech Expo event will see companies and institutions across the industry convene in Bremen.

Among the issues Washington has forced ESA to confront at CM25 is the path forward for a major Mars program. Europe has been developing a system to snag Mars samples launched to orbit from the planet’s surface and return them to Earth. But the U.S. budget plan eliminates the catch-and-release mechanism that would allow that to happen. So CM25 will now determine whether ESA can get the money to redirect that effort into a standalone mission that would give the large retrieval spacecraft an observation and communication purpose.

Another effort somewhat in limbo is the European Service Module (ESM) that ESA provides to NASA to support the astronaut-carrying Orion capsule for the Artemis lunar program. The future of the Artemis program beyond the fifth mission is unclear. ESA is now planning to provide six modules—one as a backup—but has put on hold anything beyond ESM 7. It is now assessing if the technology can be repurposed for a tug in Earth orbit or to the Moon and back.

ESA also may need extra funding to keep several science missions and other projects going that were relying on U.S. technological contributions that now may not materialize.

ESA officials exude a sense of confidence that they can plug most of those holes. Europeans also feel pressure to maintain support for Earth science missions to investigate issues such as climate change as Washington turns away from such efforts.

CM25 also has several funding initiatives on its agenda related to Europe’s military space goals. Several of those efforts form part of ESA’s new European Resilience from Space effort, which the EU plans to build into its multiyear budget plan starting in 2028.

Among the budget allocations is several hundred million euros to support European industry in developing technology for a low-Earth-orbit position, navigation and timing (LEO-PNT) system that would augment the Galileo constellation and provide more accuracy while being less susceptible to jamming and spoofing. Europe plans to fly two LEO-PNT satellites next year, but the technology funding really is aimed at supporting a large constellation that should be operational some time after 2030.

ESA also will seek funding to support technology development for a high-resolution EU Earth observation program and efforts aligned with the sovereign space-based communications system call IRIS². The satcom money would go to areas such as ensuring Europe has autonomy in critical technologies, developing user terminals, expansion into low LEO, and future ideas.

Also on the agenda, of course, are the more routine issues that come up at the ministerial gathering. Those include funding proposals for new Earth science missions, exploration and planetary defense efforts, among others. ESA also is looking for money to evolve its launchers, such as the Ariane 6 and Vega, while boosting the emergence of new rockets to diversify launch options—an issue the EU also has championed.