The European Commission is set to adopt a decision this week that will privilege European satellite operators, a move designed to curb the European expansion of Starlink, the flagship service of Elon Musk’s SpaceX. This state intervention aims to protect the accumulated wealth and market share of European corporations against foreign competition.
The Commission’s decision, expected tomorrow, concerns the selection of operators for pan-European systems providing mobile satellite services for the 2 GHz radio spectrum frequency. This specific bandwidth, the only one harmonized at the EU level, has been allocated to two European operators, Viasat and EchoStar, for the past 17 years.
Protecting European Capital
The upcoming decision is framed by the Commission as a step towards “technological sovereignty,” with spokesperson Thomas Regnier stating that “satellite connectivity is a key piece of our technological sovereignty, our security, and our defence.” This rhetoric of national interest serves to justify the protection of European corporate profits. The decision comes the week before the Commission is due to present its Tech Sovereignty Package, an initiative aimed at freeing the EU from strategic dependence on foreign technology providers, effectively favoring domestic capital.
Technological developments now allow for direct-to-device communications, enabling smartphones and other devices to connect directly to satellites. However, this advancement would allow US-based corporations like SpaceX and Amazon to directly compete with European mobile operators, potentially rendering terrestrial infrastructure obsolete and threatening existing European business models.
European telecom operators have expressed a preference to interact with European satellite operators, as these are “not seen as a direct threat to their business model.” This preference underscores the policy’s role in safeguarding the revenue streams and market positions of established European capital.
Inter-Capitalist Conflict and State Intervention
The move has ignited tensions with the US government, which has been particularly assertive in protecting the interests of American companies abroad since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year. Two months ago, at the Mobile World Congress, Brendan Carr, chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission, warned the EU against favoring European providers in satellite spectrum allocations.
Carr stated that if Europe “insists on going down a path of satellite sovereignty that excludes providers that are not based in the continent, then the US will have to be taking that into account with respect to the reciprocal treatment that we provide.” This highlights the ongoing inter-capitalist competition and the role of national states in defending their respective corporate interests.
Within the Commission itself, a clash is playing out between EU digital chief Henna Virkkunen, who is closer to the interests of telecom operators, and Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius. Last week, Kubilius pushed for IRIS², a military project, to obtain a slice of satellite frequencies, revealing the competing demands for this scarce resource. The allocation of spectrum, a collective resource, consistently becomes a balancing act between various corporate and state military interests, rather than a public good.
The Commission believes that the worst-case scenario of a full-blown trade dispute has been avoided, following a political agreement on the controversial EU-US trade deal reached last week. However, the ongoing efforts to strike a “right balance” between avoiding Washington’s wrath and allocating bandwidth for defence applications merely manage the contradictions inherent in a system driven by capital accumulation and state-backed corporate competition.