> Without SpaceX, the US would be in almost the same position as Europe right now.
Yes, without decades of public and private capital and other NASA resources supporting commercial space startups that bred, amongst other highly innovative companies, a world beating launch service and global low-latency satellite constellation the USA would be in the same boat as Europe. That is a big systemic difference! The USA has a much more consistent emphasis on private enterprise backing up state capacity that periodically inject rapid innovation and makes things cheaper even if similar forces to Europe gradually entrench monopolies that slow things down and makes them more expensive.
Europeans don't need private enterprise/initiative. We can rely on the grand vision and foresight of state institutions who always make timely, sustainable and efficient decisions.
Compared to the US's SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Sierra, and others, no, Europe has no private space industry to one order of magnitude. (Spare me the talk about how Arianespace and Airbus are "private".)
Rocket Lab could have chosen Australia to move to. It could have moved to Canada, or to an ESA member nation and thus gain access to Kourou. But it chose the US despite the ample existing competition there.
Yes, without decades of public and private capital and other NASA resources supporting commercial space startups that bred, amongst other highly innovative companies, a world beating launch service and global low-latency satellite constellation the USA would be in the same boat as Europe. That is a big systemic difference! The USA has a much more consistent emphasis on private enterprise backing up state capacity that periodically inject rapid innovation and makes things cheaper even if similar forces to Europe gradually entrench monopolies that slow things down and makes them more expensive.