European Space Activities in the Global Context

Abstract

In 2010 and 2011 the symptoms of the 2008 financial crisis were still being broadly felt worldwide. Although global financial expansion had already resumed in 2009, its pace remained slow and uncertain. The key element of the recovery has been the uneven pace of its impact on developed and emerging countries, with the latter achieving a much faster and bullish return to growth, as was predicted in the “Space Policies Issues and Trends in 2009/2010” report. Although global economic activity was expected to rise by roughly 5% in 2010 and 4.2% in 2011, advanced economies were projected to expand by only 2.2–2.7%, whereas emerging countries’ growth was expected to be up to three times higher.