EU Plans ‘European Starlink’ First Phase by 2029, Says Commissioner

By John Maximus · Published 13 October 2026
Reported from named sources and checked against the publishers linked in this article. Corrections: editorial and corrections policy.

The European Union is preparing to field its own secure satellite communications network, with European Commissioner for Defence Andrius Kubilius saying the bloc must get the first phase into orbit by 2029. He spoke at the Warsaw Security Forum, an annual security and defence conference held in the Polish capital, in remarks reported on 12 October 2026 by Charter97. The programme he was pushing is not a blank sheet: IRIS² already has a signed concession contract, a named industrial consortium and a published budget, none of which appear in that report.

Key facts

From the Warsaw remarks

• Kubilius used the nickname “European Starlink” for IRIS².
• He said the EU is taking into account the risk of being cut off from U.S. military systems.
• He named a second EU project alongside it: an orbital reconnaissance system.

From the European Commission’s published figures

• IRIS² stands for Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite.
• The planned constellation is about 290 satellites, spread across low and medium Earth orbit.
• Cost at contract signature was put at roughly €10.6bn, of which about €6bn comes from the EU budget and the balance from the European Space Agency and the private consortium.
• The builder and operator is SpaceRISE — SES, Eutelsat and Hispasat — under a 12-year concession signed in December 2024.
• The Commission’s target for full service is 2030.

What Kubilius said

“The EU must very quickly—as early as 2029—launch the first phase of the IRIS² system, the ‘European Starlink,’ which is a secure satellite communications system,” the commissioner said, as quoted by Charter97.

The phrasing matters in two ways. He set the date against the first phase, not the finished network, and he characterised the system as secure communications — language that points at institutional and defence users rather than households.

How 2029 fits the official timetable

Against the European Commission’s own 2030 full-service target, a 2029 first phase is not an acceleration of the end date so much as the first public marker for hardware actually working in orbit. The complication is that no definition of a “first phase” has been published alongside the Commission’s figures: how many of the 290 satellites it covers, which orbits they occupy and which services switch on first are all unstated, by the Commission and by Charter97 alike.

Why it matters

The stated motive is not commercial. Kubilius tied the timetable to the risk that the EU could lose access to U.S. military systems — an argument about control of infrastructure rather than about speeds, coverage or subscriber numbers.

The published scale backs that reading. At about 290 satellites, IRIS² is a fraction of the size of Starlink, which already operates thousands, so the nickname describes the political ambition and not a like-for-like broadband rival. What a 2029 date does create is a political deadline on a programme whose money and contractors are already committed.

The second project: orbital reconnaissance

Kubilius also flagged a separate EU programme, an orbital reconnaissance system, saying satellites placed in different orbits would monitor the Earth’s surface. Charter97 reports no timetable, satellite count, budget or industrial partner for it, and does not say whether it would share infrastructure with IRIS².

Background: dependence as a political question

For Brussels the live question is not Starlink availability or price but whether a non-European operator can switch the link off. That same anxiety sits behind a Ukrainian presidential adviser’s public assurance that no one will disconnect Starlink in Ukraine, and behind European debate over who holds the off switch and under what circumstances.

Sovereign alternatives have not proved straightforward elsewhere: Russia’s own Starlink rival has stumbled in orbit, as Starlink News has reported, and the orbital environment is itself now a security story, including German warnings that Russian satellites could threaten Starlink. Charter97 does not link those threads to Kubilius’s remarks, and no causal connection between them is claimed here.

For readers outside Europe — including in Zimbabwe, South Africa and the rest of the continent, where satellite internet in practice still means Starlink availability, pricing and licensing — nothing in the Warsaw remarks changes the options on the ground.

What to watch next

The concrete test is whether the 2029 date turns up in an official Commission document rather than a conference speech, attached to a definition of what the first phase includes and to launch arrangements for it. Also worth watching: any first figures for the reconnaissance system, and whether the Commission puts numbers to the commercial side of IRIS², which would be the first real signal of where its signal can be bought. Charter97’s report does not say when any of that is expected.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is IRIS² being built for?

Governmental users first. The European Commission’s description of the programme puts secure state communications — crisis management, defence and border or infrastructure surveillance — as the priority mission, with spare capacity to be sold commercially by the operating consortium. That is why Kubilius’s “European Starlink” nickname is a shorthand rather than a product description: no consumer tariffs, terminals or retail launch date have been published.

Will IRIS² be available in Zimbabwe or elsewhere in Africa?

The European Commission has said the constellation is intended to carry connectivity beyond Europe, including over Africa and the Arctic, as areas of strategic interest. What has not been published is anything a user in Zimbabwe or South Africa could act on: no national licensing route, reseller, hardware or price. Charter97’s report of Kubilius’s remarks adds no coverage detail at all.

Who will build and operate IRIS², and for how long?

SpaceRISE, a consortium of the satellite operators SES, Eutelsat and Hispasat, won the concession the European Commission signed in December 2024. Under that arrangement the consortium builds and runs the system for a 12-year concession period while the EU retains ownership of the constellation.

Did Kubilius give any figures for the orbital reconnaissance system?

He gave a description but no numbers. Charter97 quotes him naming it as a second EU project in which satellites placed in different orbits would monitor the Earth’s surface. No date, satellite count, budget or industrial partner for that project appears in the report.