The EU's decision to give European satellite operators priority could risk a backlash from the Trump administration. #EuropeNews
The European Commission will adopt a decision this week that would privilege European satellite operators in a move designed to curb the European expansion of Starlink, the flagship service of Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Starlink currently dominates the global satellite internet market with over 10,000 low-orbit satellites. Its closest competitor is Amazon’s Project Kuiper, which recently launched its first commercial satellite constellation. The strategic importance of satellite-based communications became clear after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, when Starlink provided a lifeline to Ukrainian troops after physical communications infrastructure was knocked out of service. More recently, Ukraine reportedly regained about 400 square kilometres of territory in a counter-offensive earlier this year after managing to disable thousands of illicit Russian Starlink terminals. Yet despite the systems' role in denying Russia major gains in Ukraine, Europeans have grown wary of the strategic dependence on US operators controlling such a critical communications system. In response, the EU attempted to launch its own satellite-based secure connectivity system, IRIS² – and Brussels now appears to be going a step further with a decision on radio spectrum allocation at the European level that would prevent Starlink and Kuiper from further expanding their services in Europe. “Satellite connectivity is a key piece of our technological sovereignty, our security, and our defence, as also highlighted by IRIS²,” Thomas Regnier, the Commission’s spokesperson for tech sovereignty, told Euronews. “In the changing geopolitical situation, EU-wide satellite connectivity becomes synonymous with resilience, security, and capability.”
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