The EU’s Bid to Nationalize Space
Europe’s latest space policy has a simple theory: To build a champion, you must first clear the field.
The European Commission’s newly adopted proposal to reallocate the 2 GHz mobile-satellite-service (MSS) band—a slice of radio spectrum used for satellite communications—would reserve most of that spectrum for European operators. The same proposal would limit non-EU militaries and startups, including both EU and non-EU firms, to just one-third of the available and highly desirable band.
The move reflects a broader push for “tech sovereignty,” the idea that Europe should reduce dependence on foreign technology providers in strategically important sectors. That concern now spans data centers, payments processing, telecommunications, and, increasingly, space. But the EU’s 2 GHz plan is industrial policy dressed up as tech sovereignty. It assumes Europe can create a globally competitive satellite champion by reserving critical inputs for favored firms and denying them to more efficient rivals.
That is bad economic policy for what is inherently a global communications system. For anyone who remembers the first wave of digital-sovereignty fights two decades ago, it is also eerily familiar.