On 22 March 2021, a satellite roughly the size of a shoebox began orbiting the Earth at an altitude of around 500 kilometres. Its name was Enxaneta, after the child who climbs to the top of a Catalan human tower. It was the first nanosatellite launched under the Catalan Government’s NewSpace Strategy.
The name was more than a charming cultural reference. Among castellers, the enxaneta can only reach the summit because an entire structure of people supports the ascent. The image also fits New Space: smaller companies, research institutions, public authorities and start-ups working together to enter a field once dominated by national agencies and large corporations.
Catalonia had approved its NewSpace Strategy in October 2020. It was designed not simply to place satellites in orbit, but to build an ecosystem around research, entrepreneurship, talent, infrastructure, data and public applications. Enxaneta was intended to improve Internet of Things connectivity in rural and remote areas and to collect data from sensors on the ground—for example, to monitor water, weather conditions or wildlife.
What surprised me was not only that a southern European region had developed such an ambitious strategy. It was how little this seemed to affect the mental map through which many Europeans still view innovation.
Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg are rightly regarded as major centres of European technology. Bavaria has a long-established aerospace sector, including global companies, specialised suppliers, research institutions and ambitious start-ups. Yet in October 2024, the Bavarian industry association vbw was still explicitly calling for the development of a dedicated Bavarian space strategy in its paper New Space Bavaria. Baden-Württemberg, another industrial powerhouse, adopted its aerospace strategy, THE Aerospace LÄND, in 2023.
This does not mean that Catalonia is technologically “ahead” of these German regions in every respect. Such a claim would be simplistic. Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg possess aerospace capacities developed over decades. But the chronology reveals something worth noticing: Catalonia recognised New Space early as a field in which a regional government could act strategically, mobilise an ecosystem and create new economic opportunities.
That fact sits uneasily with a persistent European cliché.
Europe cannot afford such a narrow geography of competence.
In the popular imagination, the Mediterranean remains associated primarily with sunshine, beaches, food, architecture and holidays. Northern Europe—particularly the regions north of the Alps—is more often imagined as the place where engineering, industry and “serious business” happen. These associations are so familiar that they can appear harmless. Yet they influence which regions we notice, whom we regard as a credible partner and where we expect innovation to originate.
The problem is not that Catalonia, Italy, Greece or southern France are appreciated for their landscapes and cultures. They should be. The problem begins when this becomes the dominant—or only—story told about them.
Europe cannot afford such a narrow geography of competence. Space-based infrastructure increasingly affects communications, climate monitoring, agriculture, mobility, security and technological sovereignty. In an era of geopolitical uncertainty and growing hostility between global powers, European regions need to identify complementary strengths and cooperate more closely across borders.
New Space is particularly suited to this form of collaboration. Its development depends on networks connecting research, digital technologies, manufacturing, data applications, public authorities and private capital. A Catalan company does not need to reproduce the capabilities of a Bavarian research institution, nor should a Baden-Württemberg manufacturer regard a Mediterranean technology hub merely as a market. Their different strengths could become parts of a shared European value chain.
But cooperation begins with perception. We cannot build meaningful partnerships with regions whose capabilities we fail to see. Sometimes the most stubborn barriers to European integration are not legal or financial. They are the inherited assumptions that quietly determine where we look for expertise.
The small Enxaneta therefore carries a larger lesson. Technological vision in Europe is not confined to its traditional industrial centres, just as the Mediterranean is not merely Europe’s leisure landscape. Our continent’s capacity for innovation is more widely distributed than our stereotypes suggest.
Where else in Europe are outdated regional images preventing us from recognising the partners, ideas and capabilities that we urgently need?
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