Airbus is less a company than a peace treaty. It was born to stop France and Germany from strangling each other over aerospace, and it still functions like a permanent arbitration board. The commercial jet side is its saving grace, a cash fountain kept alive mostly because Boeing can’t build a plane without turning it into a crime scene. Everything else is political choreography disguised as engineering.

The military division points to the A400M as proof of European independence, when in reality it’s proof that Europe can spend billions to reinvent the C-17 and still get a slower, less reliable machine. The next flagship is FCAS, the supposed sixth-generation fighter. So far the program has produced arguments about intellectual property, leadership battles with Dassault, and a parade of government ministers pretending progress is being made. Hardware is optional, slides are mandatory.

Space is a similar mix of competence and irrelevance. Airbus can build satellites with exquisite craftsmanship. The problem is the market has moved. GEO commsats, once the mainstay, are now a graveyard of half-empty transponders. Earth observation is alive, but only because the European Union has endless appetite for Copernicus contracts that produce glossy maps few people ever use. Airbus did manage one moment of credibility in the modern age by mass-producing satellites for OneWeb. Naturally, that customer collapsed into bankruptcy before the assembly line could become a bragging point.

The reason Airbus never dies is that it doesn’t need customers, it needs governments. Brussels invents “sovereign constellations” and Airbus is handed the keys. ESA announces an interplanetary mission and Airbus gets the contract, late delivery guaranteed. National governments want spy satellites and Airbus gets the job because nobody else can be trusted to split the pie three ways. Speed, vision, and commercial competitiveness are irrelevant when your true product is political balance.

Airbus will continue building machines that work eventually, and it will continue cashing checks no matter what. It is not Europe’s challenger to SpaceX, nor will it ever be. It is Europe’s method of keeping ministries calm, shareholders distracted, and contractors fed. A monument to compromise, producing technology in the same way a parliament produces laws, slowly, expensively, and only after every faction has had its tantrum.