In December 2001, the CER will publish Improving European Defence Procurement , a working paper by Daniel Keohane. This paper will suggest that ESDP is a political opportunity to improve common European procurement. A second aspect of the industrial impact of ESDP will be on efforts to create a single European defence market. European industry is consolidating but markets remain fragmented. In 1998 six countries signed the Letter of Intent to begin harmonising national defence market regulations.
Space has an increasingly important economic role, and is integral to the networked global economy.
But Europe is facing the stark choice of becoming completely dependent on the US for space technology, or radically improve its own ability to produce critical space systems. In March 2001, the CER published an article by Carl Bildt entitled Opening Europe's Final Frontier. The article called on the European Council to provide strategic direction for the future of European space policy.