EU Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin announced that of the €131 billion the European Commission plans to allocate to the defense and space sector between 2028 and 2034, €4.6 billion will be allocated to the “European Starlink” project. This is a system that no EU country could likely build on its own, he emphasized.
On Thursday, at a meeting of the parliamentary EU affairs committee, Serafin presented information on the draft EU budget for 2028-2034, which assumes, among other things, a five-fold increase in funds for defense and space – to €131 billion.
The EU commissioner announced that €4.6 billion of this amount will go towards the “European Starlink” project, which is already underway. “We all saw at the beginning of this year how important it is for modern warfare to have an autonomous, independent satellite communications system. Europe will be building such a system. A system that probably no single member state could build individually,” he pointed out.
“Europe will also be building – design work is still underway here – a satellite surveillance system (…), also crucial from the perspective of modern warfare,” he added. He said he was personally convinced that the emphasis on research and defense is desirable from Poland's perspective. “It's not Portugal or Italy that borders a country that threatens European security, but Poland,” he emphasized.
Late last year, the European Commission signed a satellite internet concession agreement with the SpaceRISE consortium of European companies. This concerns the IRIS2 satellite system, which utilizes a constellation of 290 communications satellites. The EC announced that the system would represent “a significant step towards European sovereignty and secure communications.”
Thanks to this project – initiated by the previous Commissioner for Internal Market and Defence Industry, Thierry Breton – the EU is to become independent from external suppliers, especially Starlink, built by SpaceX, a company owned by American multi-billionaire Elon Musk. (PAP)
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