Comment by hn_submit

If national governments can launch their own payloads without having to go through ESA or ArianeSpace it'll undermine the latter's position. They may even become competitors.

Italy accused the French-based ArianeSpace of deliberately taking launches away from the Italian-build Vega rocket in favor of the French-build Ariane rockets. They've now more of left ArianeSpace and are selling the rockets themselves and using ESA's infrastructure to launch them.