European players are banding together to put the brakes on the U.S. giant’s dominance over satellite connectivity.

October 12, 2026

BRUSSELS — Stepping on stage at the International Space Summit in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron called on top European players to forge a new “alliance” to strengthen collective satellite capacity.

The real target of the let’s-team-up message? Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Macron’s speech last month was a public endorsement of a behind-the-scenes push that would see the bloc’s major telecoms companies make an aggressive play on direct-to-device connectivity — mobile signals beamed directly from satellites to phones.

On Tuesday, telecom ministers from EU national governments are gathering in Limerick, Ireland, to discuss a legislative proposal that could make it easier for top European carriers to get that satellite access.

The push would see Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Vodafone and Telefónica join forces to secure critical and coveted frequencies that will become available next year, as the European Commission eyes a new allocation procedure that would reserve frequencies for European players.

The plan, reported by Bloomberg ahead of Macron’s Sept. 10 speech, was confirmed to POLITICO by two people aware of the talks.

“We are looking at it,” Michaël Trabbia, a senior executive of France-based telecom group Orange, said in an interview, declining to comment further on the plans. “We want, as a leading, innovating group in telco, to be able to propose this service to our customers. We don’t want to have one dominant player.”

Vodafone declined to comment, while Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica did not respond to requests for comment.

The future of space is drawing attention in Europe as geopolitical conflicts raise its strategic importance, and security demands and technological progress create business opportunities.

Musk has made it clear that Starlink is keen to deepen its dominance in low-Earth orbit, where satellites fly close to Earth to deliver faster connections. The company is pinning its hopes on obtaining these prized frequencies to offer mobile services without having to partner with local telecom providers.

SpaceX, Starlink’s parent company, didn’t respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

The control question

With the EU set to reallocate the 2GHz satellite communications band in 2027, the proposal being discussed Tuesday would see the licensing process favor European operators.

Legislators in Brussels are increasingly determined to make sure Musk doesn’t achieve his ambitions to dominate globally.

European operators “should come together, they should bring innovation, they should bring investments, there’s a lot for them to do,” said Angelika Winzig, the lead negotiator in the European Parliament for the allocation of the mobile satellite spectrum.

Together with other lawmakers from the mainstream groups, Winzig filed amendments to the European Commission’s May proposal to raise the barrier to non-European players to access the strategic airwaves.

Michał Kobosko, from Macron’s Renew centrist group, is also pushing to make it easier for European telecom consortiums to gun for this asset. “I believe that we cannot cede full control over European satellite communications to non-European companies,” he said.

Starlink isn’t sitting idle. Musk’s company has stepped up its lobbying in Brussels over the past two years, holding more meetings with the European Commission and lawmakers ahead of policy initiatives that could hold back its expansion.

Earlier this year, the U.S. firm warned that the EU’s plan would leave Europeans without reliable direct-to-device services. “Starlink Broadband and Starlink Mobile [SpaceX’s consumer-facing subsidiaries] have done more to meet the European Commission’s connectivity goals than any other satellite operator,” the company said in a four-page plea, obtained by POLITICO.

It also warned the plan could create “global interference problems, including to emergency services like those in Ukraine.”

Disaster playbook

Across Europe, Starlink has often been quick to offer help during emergencies, not just in Ukraine, where Musk’s sky network has become a vital resource for wartime communications.

These efforts in emergencies and conflicts are part of a deliberate push to showcase the technology’s reliability and relevance and to win over regulators whose approval Starlink needs to operate.

“It’s a strategy we see absolutely everywhere there are humanitarian or climate-related crises,” Célestine Rabouam, a researcher at the French Institute of Geopolitics (GEODE), said. “Starlink steps in, offering to send terminals and generously activate its service.”

As wildfires swept across France this summer, SpaceX offered communications support to French firefighting teams, as it was doing in Spain. French authorities declined, saying the fires had not caused widespread damage to telecom infrastructure.

SpaceX sought to turn the crisis into an opportunity. Behind the scenes, it had been working to persuade French authorities that activating Starlink Mobile in France for the first time would be both useful and necessary.

French operators have sought to underscore their relevance. In a memo sent to government officials and seen by POLITICO, they argued that terrestrial networks should remain the priority while acknowledging the complementary role satellite communications can play — citing European initiatives such as Eutelsat and the IRIS² constellation, but never Musk’s company.

“Starlink may not be trying to make countries dependent on them, but it’s trying to make itself indispensable,” Rabouam added. “Right now, they’re the only ones able to deploy so quickly and adapt so easily.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-telecom-giants-team-up-against-starlink