The EU must ensure its overhaul of telecom rules does not make it easier for Elon Musk’s SpaceX to take control of the European mobile and broadband telecoms market, a senior EU lawmaker has said.
Michał Kobosko, the European parliament’s lead negotiator on the Digital Networks Act, which will update telecoms regulations across the bloc, told the FT that Europe “cannot just wake up and see that SpaceX is aiming to control fully the European market and we are doing nothing against it.
“That would be too far, that would be dangerous for us in Europe,” he said, adding that his draft report includes strict “sovereignty and resilience criteria for pan-European [mobile] spectrum licences”.
His warning comes as Musk is seeking to expand SpaceX’s Starlink satellite business into mobile services for consumers. Earlier this month, it bought licences in the US that could lead to a more direct-to-consumer mobile offering, giving it a much bigger market than its satellite broadband alone and putting the company in direct competition with American telecom giants.
The move sparked concerns among European telecom operators, which fear SpaceX plans a similar move in the European Union just as the bloc is reviewing its telecom rules to boost investments in Europe’s digital infrastructure.
SpaceX already offers broadband in Europe and mobile services indirectly through other providers. It has not publicly said whether it plans to expand. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
“We cannot exclude that Elon Musk is watching closely at the opportunities in Europe as well nowadays”, the Polish lawmaker said.
His intervention comes amid an intensifying geopolitical dispute over satellite telecommunications services, as European governments seek to reduce their reliance on American technology and infrastructure.
Last week’s restrictions placed on Musk’s Starlink systems disrupted frontline communications in Ukraine, hindering several military missions amid escalating Russian attacks.
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent told NBC on Sunday that it was ‘‘reckless’’ for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to charge that the Donald Trump administration had intentionally slowed Starlink.
In response to geopolitical concerns, the European Commission in May proposed reserving a part of its spectrum band that allows smartphones to connect directly to satellites for European players, thus restricting access for players like Starlink.
That proposal has become a transatlantic tension point, with the US ambassador to the EU warning of potential retaliation if the EU follows through.
“The events in Ukraine last week showed us that there’s a direct link between what Americans are doing politically and economically,” Kobosko said.
“This also lets lots of Europeans understand how dependent we are today on Americans, and nowadays you don’t really know what to expect from them”, referring to the “close relation” between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The commission proposed the Digital Networks Act earlier this year. Once the parliament and EU countries agree internally on their position, they will hammer out the final version.
Kobosko criticised the commission’s original proposal for lacking ambition to ensure more tech sovereignty, more harmonisation to create a single market for the telecom industry and to ensure a “fair relationship” between European telecom operators and tech companies, which are mostly American.
European telecom providers have long lobbied the commission to force data-hungry platforms such as Netflix, Google’s YouTube and other tech companies to pay a fee to compensate for their internet traffic. In its original proposal, the commission stopped short of introducing mandatory network fees, instead opting for a voluntary co-operation mechanism between telcos and Big Tech.
Kobosko wants to go further. His draft report, seen by the FT, would impose obligations on the largest generator of internet traffic to negotiate agreements with telecom operators over how their networks connect and exchange data. National regulators would be able to intervene if the two sides failed to reach an agreement.
The lawmaker said that “this is an extremely fragile topic in our transatlantic discussions” but that is key to demand “interoperability is really assured on the markets, it’s also an important factor for our resilience as well”.
EU countries are still negotiating their position on the Digital Networks Act. Ireland, which holds the rotating EU presidency and has responsibility for leading the talks, has produced a compromise text. That document, seen by the FT, did not yet tackle the most sensitive issues.