In the desolate Arctic desert of Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, Europeans are building defenses against a new, up-and-coming security threat: space hacks. A Lithuanian company called Astrolight is constructing a ground station, with support from the European Space Agency, that will use laser beams to download voluminous data from satellites in a fast and secure manner, it announced last month.  It’s just one example of how Europe is moving to harden the security of its satellites, as rising geopolitical tensions and an expanding spectrum of hybrid threats are pushing space communications to the heart of the bloc’s security plans. For years, satellite infrastructure was treated by policymakers as a technical utility rather than a strategic asset. That changed in 2022, when a cyberattack on the Viasat satellite network coincided with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.   Satellites have since become popular targets for interference, espionage and disruption. The European Commission in June warned that space was becoming “more contested,” flagging increasing cyberattacks and attempts at electronic interference targeting satellites and ground stations. Germany and the United Kingdom warned earlier this year of the growing threat posed by Russian and Chinese space satellites, which are regularly spotted spying on their satellites.  EU governments are now racing to boost their resilience and reduce reliance on foreign technology, both through regulations like the new Space Act and investments in critical infrastructure. The threat is crystal clear in Greenland, Laurynas Mačiulis, the chief executive officer of Astrolight, said. “The problem today is that around 80 percent of all the [space data] traffic is downlinked to a single location in Svalbard, which is an island shared between different countries, including Russia,” he said in an interview. Europe’s main Arctic ground station sits in Svalbard and supports both the navigation systems of Galileo and Copernicus. While the location is strategic, it is also extremely sensitive due to nearby Russian and Chinese activities. Crucially, the station relies on a single undersea cable to connect to the internet, which has been damaged several times. “In case of intentional or unintentional damage of this cable, you lose access to most of the geo-intelligence satellites, which is, of course, very critical. So our aim is to deploy a complementary satellite ground station up in Greenland,” Mačiulis said. THE MUSK OF IT ALL A centerpiece of Europe’s ambitions to have secure, European satellite communication is IRIS², a multibillion-euro secure connectivity constellation pitched in 2022 and designed to rival Elon Musk’s Starlink system. “Today, communications — for instance in Ukraine — are far too dependent on Starlink,” said Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the founding chairman of political consultancy Rasmussen Global, speaking at an event in Brussels in November. “That dependence rests on the shifting ideas of an American billionaire. That’s too risky. We have to build a secure communications system that is independent of the United States.” The European system, which will consist of 18 satellites operating in low and medium Earth orbit, aims to provide Europe with fast and encrypted communication. “Even if someone intercepts the signal [of IRIS² ], they will not be able to decrypt it,” Piero Angeletti, head of the Secure Connectivity Space Segment Office at the European Space Agency, told POLITICO. “This will allow us to have a secure system that is also certified and accredited by the national security entities.” The challenge is that IRIS² is still at least four years away from becoming operational. WHO’S IN CHARGE? While Europe beefs up its secure satellite systems, governments are still streamlining how they can coordinate cyber defenses and space security. In many cases, that falls to both space or cyber commands, which, unlike traditional military units, are relatively new and often still being built out. Clémence Poirier, a cyberdefense researcher at the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich, said that EU countries must now focus on maturing them. “European states need to keep developing those commands,” she told POLITICO. “Making sure that they coordinate their action, that there are clear mandates and responsibilities when it comes to cyber security, cyber defensive operations, cyber offensive operations, and also when it comes to monitoring the threat.” Industry, too, is struggling to fill the gaps. Most cybersecurity firms do not treat space as a sector in its own right, leaving satellite operators in a blind spot. Instead, space systems are folded into other categories: Earth-observation satellites often fall under environmental services, satellite TV under media, and broadband constellations like Starlink under internet services. That fragmentation makes it harder for space companies to assess risk, update threat models or understand who they need to defend against. It also complicates incident response: while advanced tools exist for defending against cyberattacks on terrestrial networks, those tools often do not translate well to space systems. “Cybersecurity in space is a bit different,” Poirier added. “You cannot just implement whatever solution you have for your computers on Earth and just deploy that to your satellite.”

Venture capitalist Finn Murphy believes world leaders could soon resort to deflecting sunlight into space if the Earth gets unbearably hot. That’s why he’s invested more than $1 million in Stardust Solutions, a leading solar geoengineering firm that’s developing a system to reduce warming by enveloping the globe in reflective particles. Murphy isn’t rooting for climate catastrophe. But with global temperatures soaring and the political will to limit climate change waning, Stardust “can be worth tens of billions of dollars,” he said. “It would be definitely better if we lost all our money and this wasn’t necessary,” said Murphy, the 33-year-old founder of Nebular, a New York investment fund named for a vast cloud of space dust and gas. Murphy is among a new wave of investors who are putting millions of dollars into emerging companies that aim to limit the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth — while also potentially destabilizing weather patterns, food supplies and global politics. He has a degree in mathematics and mechanical engineering and views global warming not just as a human and political tragedy, but as a technical challenge with profitable solutions. Solar geoengineering investors are generally young, pragmatic and imaginative — and willing to lean into the adventurous side of venture capitalism. They often shrug off the concerns of scientists who argue it’s inherently risky to fund the development of potentially dangerous technologies through wealthy investors who could only profit if the planet-cooling systems are deployed. “If the technology works and the outcomes are positive without really catastrophic downstream impacts, these are trillion-dollar market opportunities,” said Evan Caron, a co-founder of the energy-focused venture firm Montauk Capital. “So it’s a no-brainer for an investor to take a shot at some of these.” More than 50 financial firms, wealthy individuals and government agencies have collectively provided more than $115.8 million to nine startups whose technology could be used to limit sunlight, according to interviews with VCs, tech company founders and analysts, as well as private investment data analyzed by POLITICO’s E&E News. That pool of funders includes Silicon Valley’s Sequoia Capital, one of the world’s largest venture capital firms, and four other investment groups that have more than $1 billion of assets under management. Of the total amount invested in the geoengineering sector, $75 million went to Stardust, or nearly 65 percent. The U.S.-Israeli startup is developing reflective particles and the means to spray and monitor them in the stratosphere, some 11 miles above the planet’s surface. At least three other climate-intervention companies have also raked in at least $5 million. The cash infusion is a bet on planet-cooling technologies that many political leaders, investors and environmentalists still consider taboo. In addition to having unknown side effects, solar geoengineering could expose the planet to what scientists call “termination shock,” a scenario in which global temperatures soar if the cooling technologies fail or are suddenly abandoned. Still, the funding surge for geoengineering companies pales in comparison to the billions of dollars being put toward artificial intelligence. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has raised $62.5 billion in 2025 alone, according to investment data compiled by PitchBook. The investment pool for solar geoengineering startups is relatively shallow in part because governments haven’t determined how they would regulate the technology — something Stardust is lobbying to change. As a result, the emerging sector is seen as too speculative for most venture capital firms, according to Kim Zou, the CEO of Sightline Climate, a market intelligence firm. VCs mostly work on behalf of wealthy individuals, as well as pension funds, university endowments and other institutional investors. “It’s still quite a niche set of investors that are even thinking about or looking at the geoengineering space,” Zou said. “The climate tech and energy tech investors we speak to still don’t really see there being an investable opportunity there, primarily because there’s no commercial market for it today.” AEROSOLS IN THE STRATOSPHERE Stardust and its investors are banking on signing contracts with one or more governments that could deploy its solar geoengineering system as soon as the end of the decade. Those investors include Lowercarbon Capital, a climate-focused firm co-founded by billionaire VC Chris Sacca, and Exor, the holding company of an Italian industrial dynasty and perhaps the most mainstream investment group to back a sunlight reflection startup. Even Stardust’s supporters acknowledge that the company is far from a sure bet. “It’s unique in that there is not currently demand for this solution,” said Murphy, whose firm is also supporting out-there startups seeking to build robots and data centers in space. “You have to go and create the product in order to potentially facilitate the demand.” Lowercarbon partner Ryan Orbuch said the firm would see a return on its Stardust investment only “in the context of an actual customer who can actually back many years of stable, safe deployment.” Exor, another Stardust investor, didn’t respond to a request for comment. Other startups are trying to develop commercial markets for solar geoengineering. Make Sunsets, a company funded by billionaire VC Tim Draper, releases sulfate-filled weather balloons that pop when they reach the stratosphere. It sells cooling credits to individuals and corporations based on the theory that the sulfates can reliably reduce warming. There are questions, however, about the science and economics underpinning the credit system of Make Sunsets, according to the investment bank Jeffries. “A cooling credit market is unlikely to be viable,” the bank said in a May 2024 note to clients. That’s because the temperature reductions produced by sulfate aerosols vary by altitude, location and season, the note explained. And the warming impacts of carbon dioxide emissions last decades — much longer than any cooling that would be created from a balloon’s worth of sulfate. Make Sunsets didn’t respond to a request for comment. The company has previously attracted the attention of regulators in the U.S. and Mexico, who have claimed it began operating without the necessary government approvals. Draper Associates says on its website that it’s “shaping a future where the impossible becomes everyday reality.” The firm has previously backed successful consumer tech firms like Tesla, Skype and Hotmail. “It is getting hotter in the Summer everywhere,” Tim Draper said in an email. “We should be encouraging every solution. I love this team, and the science works.” THE NEXT FRONTIER One startup is pursuing space-based solar geoengineering. EarthGuard is attempting to build a series of large sunlight deflectors that would be positioned between the sun and the planet, some 932,000 miles from the Earth. The company did not respond to emailed questions. Other space companies are considering geoengineering as a side project. That includes Gama, a French startup that’s designing massive solar sails that could be used for deep space travel or as a planetary sunshade, and Ethos Space, a Los Angeles company with plans to industrialize the moon. Both companies are part of an informal research network established by the Planetary Sunshade Foundation, a nonprofit advocating for the development of a trillion-dollar parasol for the globe. The network mainly brings together collaborators on the sidelines of space industry conferences, according to Gama CEO Andrew Nutter. “We’re willing to contribute something if we realize it’s genuinely necessary and it’s a better solution than other solutions” to the climate challenge, Nutter said of the space shade concept. “But our business model does not depend on it. If you have dollar signs hanging next to something, that can bias your decisions on what’s best for the planet.” Nutter said Gama has raised about $5 million since he co-founded the company in 2020. Its investors include Possible Ventures, a German VC firm that’s also financing a nuclear fusion startup and says on its website that the firm is “relentlessly optimistic — choosing to focus on the possibilities rather than obsess over the risks.” Possible Ventures did not respond to a request for comment. Sequoia-backed Reflect Orbital is another space startup that’s exploring solar geoengineering as a potential moneymaker. The company based near Los Angeles is developing a network of satellite mirrors that would direct sunlight down to the Earth at night for lighting industrial sites or, eventually, producing solar energy. Its space mirrors, if oriented differently, could also be used for limiting the amount of sun rays that reach the planet. “It’s not so much a technological limitation as much as what has the highest, best impact. It’s more of a business decision,” said Ally Stone, Reflect Orbital’s chief strategy officer. “It’s a matter of looking at each satellite as an opportunity and whether, when it’s over a specific geography, that makes more sense to reflect sunlight towards or away from the Earth.” Reflect Orbital has raised nearly $28.7 million from investors including Lux Capital, a firm that touts its efforts to “turn sci-fi into sci-fact” and has invested in the autonomous defense systems companies Anduril and Saildrone.” Sequoia and Lux didn’t respond to requests for comment. The startup hopes to send its first satellite into space next summer, according to Stone. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, whose aerospace company already has an estimated fleet of more than 8,800 internet satellites in orbit, has also suggested using the circling network to limit sunlight. “A large solar-powered AI satellite constellation would be able to prevent global warming by making tiny adjustments in how much solar energy reached Earth,” Musk wrote on X last month. Neither he nor SpaceX responded to an emailed request for comment. DON’T CALL IT GEOENGINEERING Other sunlight-reflecting startups are entering the market — even if they’d rather not be seen as solar geoengineering companies. Arctic Reflections is a two-year-old company that wants to reduce global warming by increasing Arctic sea ice, which doesn’t absorb as much heat as open water. The Dutch startup hasn’t yet pursued outside investors. “We see this not necessarily as geo-engineering, but rather as climate adaptation,” CEO Fonger Ypma said in an email. “Just like in reforestation projects, people help nature in growing trees, our idea is that we would help nature in growing ice.” The main funder of Arctic Reflections is the British government’s independent Advanced Research and Invention Agency. In May, ARIA awarded $4.41 million to the company — more than four times what it had raised to that point. Another startup backed by ARIA is Voltitude, which is developing micro balloons to monitor geoengineering from the stratosphere. The U.K.-based company didn’t respond to a request for comment. Altogether, the British agency is supporting 22 geoengineering projects, only a handful of which involve startups. “ARIA is only funding fundamental research through this programme, and has not taken an equity stake in any geoengineering companies,” said Mark Symes, a program director at the agency. It also requires that all research it supports “must be published, including those that rule out approaches by showing they are unsafe or unworkable.” Sunscreen is a new startup that is trying to limit sunlight in localized areas. It was founded earlier this year by Stanford University graduate student Solomon Kim. “We are pioneering the use of targeted, precision interventions to mitigate the destructive impacts of heatwave on critical United States infrastructure,” Kim said in an email. But he was emphatic that “we are not geoengineering” since the cooling impacts it’s pursuing are not large scale. Kim declined to say how much had been raised by Sunscreen and from what sources. As climate change and its impacts continue to worsen, Zou of Sightline Climate expects more investors to consider solar geoengineering startups, including deep-pocketed firms and corporations interested in the technology. Without their help, the startups might not be able to develop their planet-cooling systems. “People are feeling like, well wait a second, our backs are kind of starting to get against the wall. Time is ticking, we’re not really making a ton of progress” on decarbonization, she said. “So I do think there’s a lot more questions getting asked right now in the climate tech and venture community around understanding it,” Zou said of solar geoengineering. “Some of these companies and startups and venture deals are also starting to bring more light into the space.” Karl Mathiesen contributed reporting.

WYTON, England —  Europe must be prepare for war on its doorstep, British military chiefs warned Thursday as they detailed an unprecedented level of threat against the U.K.’s armed forces. Speaking at the launch of a new British Military Intelligence Service (MIS) Defense Minister Al Carns said the “shadow of war is knocking on Europe’s door” and warned NATO allies must be ready to respond. Europe is not facing “wars of choice” anymore but “wars of necessity” which will come with a high human cost, Carns argued, citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an example. Hostile intelligence activity against British military personnel and property has risen by more than 50 percent over the last year, mainly coming from Iran, China and Russia, Chief of Defense Intelligence Adrian Bird revealed at the same launch event at Royal Air Force Wyton. The RAF base in Cambridgeshire, in the east of England, will house the new unified intelligence service, and is already home to Pathfinder — the largest “five eyes” intelligence hub in the world. MIS will bring together units from the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force in a bid to speed up information sharing, as recommended by this year’s Strategic Defense Review (SDR). It will also host a new “Defence Counter-Intelligence Unit,” designed to protect the armed forces and their equipment and systems from foreign interference.  Personnel at Wyton will monitor a wide range of data from satellite imagery and drone-recorded video footage, as well as information gathered by agents in the field. Following a recent damning report into Britain’s preparedness for war by the U.K. House of Commons Defense Committee, Carns argued that revamping military intelligence will help ensure “that our deterrence is absolutely foolproof.” | John Keeble/Getty Images Following a recent damning report into Britain’s preparedness for war by the U.K. House of Commons Defense Committee, Carns argued that revamping military intelligence will help ensure “that our deterrence is absolutely foolproof.” Carns stressed the need to convince the British public of the seriousness of the threats posed by hostile states. Ministers need to “make sure the population recognize that those threats overseas have direct impacts to their way of living, their cost of living, food prices, fuel prices, and government spending as a whole,” he said. His warnings echo those issued by NATO boss Mark Rutte, who said during a speech in Berlin on Thursday: “Russia has brought war back to Europe, and we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents and great grandparents endured.” Senior figures overseeing the British launch admit they face a shortfall in recruiting people to intelligence roles.  Minister for Veterans Louise Sandher-Jones told reporters: “We know over the past few years that [recruitment] has not gone in the direction that we wanted, and it’s definitely very much a mission for us to turn that around.”

DUBLIN — Neutral and poorly armed Ireland — long viewed as “Europe’s blind spot” — announced Thursday it will spend €1.7 billion on improved military equipment, capabilities and facilities to deter drones and potential Russian sabotage of undersea cables. The five-year plan, published as Defense Minister Helen McEntee visited the Curragh army base near Dublin,  aims in part to reassure European allies that their leaders will be safe from attack when Ireland — a non-NATO member largely dependent on neighboring Britain for its security — hosts key EU summits in the second half of next year. McEntee said Ireland intends to buy and deploy €19 million in counter-drone technology “as soon as possible, not least because of the upcoming European presidency.” Ireland’s higher military spending — representing a 55 percent increase from previous commitments — comes barely a week after a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy exposed Ireland’s inability to secure its own seas and skies. Five unmarked drones buzzed an Irish naval vessel supposed to be guarding the flight path of Zelenskyy’s plane shortly after the Ukrainian leader touched down at Dublin Airport. The Irish ship didn’t fire at the drones, which eventually disappeared. Irish authorities have been unable to identify their source, but suspect that they were operated from an unidentified ship later spotted in European Space Agency satellite footage. The Russian embassy in Dublin denied any involvement. Ireland’s navy has just eight ships, but sufficient crews to operate only two at a time, even though the country has vast territorial waters containing critical undersea infrastructure and pipelines that supply three-fourths of Ireland’s natural gas. The country has no fighter jets and no military-grade radar and sonar. Some but not all of those critical gaps will be plugged by 2028, McEntee pledged. She said Ireland would roll out military-grade radar starting next year, buy sonar systems for the navy, and acquire up to a dozen helicopters, including four already ordered from Airbus. The army would upgrade its Swiss-made fleet of 80 Piranha III armored vehicles and develop drone and anti-drone units. The air force’s fixed-wing aircraft will be replaced by 2030 — probably by what would be Ireland’s first wing of combat fighters. Thursday’s announcement coincided with publication of an independent assessment of Ireland’s rising security vulnerabilities on land, sea and air. The report, coauthored by the Dublin-based think tank IIEA and analysts at Deloitte, found that U.S. multinationals operating in Ireland were at risk of cyberattacks and espionage by Russian, Chinese and Indian intelligence agents operating in the country.

The Radio Spectrum Policy Group’s (RSPG) Nov. 12 opinion on the upper 6-GHz band is framed as a long-term strategic vision for Europe’s digital future. But its practical effect is far less ambitious: it grants mobile operators a cost-free reservation of one of Europe’s most valuable spectrum resources, without deployment obligations, market evidence or a realistic plan for implementation. > At a moment when Europe is struggling to accelerate the deployment of digital > infrastructure and close the gap with global competitors, this decision > amounts to a strategic pause dressed up as policy foresight. The opinion even invites the mobile industry to develop products for the upper 6-GHz band, when policy should be guided by actual market demand and product deployment, not the other way around. At a moment when Europe is struggling to accelerate the deployment of digital infrastructure and close the gap with global competitors, this decision amounts to a strategic pause dressed up as policy foresight. The cost of inaction is real. Around the world, advanced 6-GHz Wi-Fi is already delivering high-capacity, low-latency connectivity. The United States, Canada, South Korea and others have opened the 6-GHz band for telemedicine, automated manufacturing, immersive education, robotics and a multitude of other high-performance Wi-Fi connectivity use cases. These are not experimental concepts; they are operational deployments generating tangible socioeconomic value. Holding the upper 6- GHz band in reserve delays these benefits at a time when Europe is seeking to strengthen competitiveness, digital inclusion, and digital sovereignty. The opinion introduces another challenge by calling for “flexibility” for member states. In practice, this means regulatory fragmentation across 27 markets, reopening the door to divergent national spectrum policies — precisely the outcome Europe has spent two decades trying to avert with the Digital Single Market. > Without a credible roadmap, reserving the band for hypothetical cellular > networks only exacerbates policy uncertainty without delivering progress. Equally significant is what the opinion does not address. The upper 6-GHz band is already home to ‘incumbents’: fixed links and satellite services that support public safety, government operations and industrial connectivity. Any meaningful mobile deployment would require refarming these incumbents — a technically complex, politically sensitive and financially burdensome process. To date, no member state has proposed a viable plan for how such relocation would proceed, how much it would cost or who would pay. Without a credible roadmap, reserving the band for hypothetical cellular networks only exacerbates policy uncertainty without delivering progress. There is, however, a pragmatic alternative. The European Commission and the member states committed to advancing Europe’s connectivity can allow controlled Wi-Fi access to the upper 6-GHz band now — bringing immediate benefits for citizens and enterprises — while establishing clear, evidence-based criteria for any future cellular deployments. Those criteria should include demonstrated commercial viability, validated coexistence with incumbents, and fully funded relocation plans where necessary. This approach preserves long-term policy flexibility for member states and mobile operators, while ensuring that spectrum delivers measurable value today rather than being held indefinitely in reserve. > Spectrum is not an abstract asset. RSPG itself calls it a scarce resource that > must be used efficiently, but this opinion falls short of that principle. Spectrum is not an abstract asset. RSPG itself calls it a scarce resource that must be used efficiently, but this opinion falls short of that principle. Spectrum underpins Europe’s competitiveness, connectivity, and digital innovation. But its value is unlocked through use, not by shelving it in anticipation that hypothetical future markets might someday justify withholding action now. To remain competitive in the next decade, Europe needs a 6-GHz policy grounded in evidence, aligned with the single market, and focused on real-world impact. The upper 6-GHz band should be a driver of European innovation, not the latest casualty of strategic hesitation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT * The sponsor is Wi-Fi Alliance * The ultimate controlling entity is Wi-Fi Alliance More information here.

BRUSSELS — The EU will start using high-resolution satellites and the latest drone technology to crack down on drugs smuggled through its borders, as cocaine and synthetic drugs swarm European capitals and the bloc grapples with growing drug trafficking violence. “When it comes to illegal drugs, Europe is reaching a crisis point,” said European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner on Thursday, while presenting the new EU Drugs Strategy and action plan against drug trafficking. They lay out actions to boost international cooperation, stop the import of illicit drugs, dismantle production sites, curb recruitment of young people to criminal networks and tackle the growing drug-related violence that has taken capitals hostage. As gang networks evolve and drug traffickers constantly find new “loopholes” to bring their drugs into Europe, the EU and countries will work with customs, agencies and the private sector to better monitor and disrupt trafficking routes across land, sea or air. This includes using the latest technologies and artificial intelligence to find drugs sent via mail, monitoring aviation and publishing its upcoming EU Ports Strategy for port security. EU border security agency Frontex will get “state of the art resources,” said Brunner, including high-resolution satellites and drones. “Drug traffickers use the latest technologies, which means we need innovation to beat them,” Brunner said. To stay up to date, the European Commission is establishing a Security and Innovation Campus to boost research and test cutting-edge technologies in 2026. “We send the drug lords and their organizations a clear message: Europe is fighting back,” Brunner said. On top of the increased import of illegal drugs, Europe is grappling with the growing in-house production of synthetic drugs, with authorities dismantling up to 500 labs every year. To tackle this, the European Union Drugs Agency will develop a European database on drug production incidents and an EU-wide substance database to help countries identify synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals. The EU is also looking at its existing laws, evaluating the current rules against organized crime and the existing Framework Decision on drug trafficking by 2026. The EUDA’s new European drug alert system, launched a couple of weeks ago, will also help issue alerts on serious drug-related risks, such as highly potent synthetic drugs; while its EU early warning system will help identify new substances and quickly inform the capitals. Europe is grappling with a surge in the availability of cocaine, synthetic stimulants and potent opioids, alongside increasingly complex trafficking networks and rising drug-related violence, particularly in Belgium and the Netherlands. The quantity of drugs seized in the EU has increased dramatically between 2013 and 2023, the commissioner said, with authorities seizing 419 metric tons of cocaine in 2023 — six times more than the previous decade. But it’s not just the drugs — illicit drug trafficking comes with “bloodshed, violence, corruption, and social harm,” Brunner said. Criminal networks are increasingly recruiting young and vulnerable people, often using social media platforms. To fight this, the EU will launch an EU-wide platform to “stop young people being drawn into drug trafficking,” connecting experts across Europe. “I think that is key — to get engaged with the young people at an early stage, to prevent them getting into the use of drugs,” Brunner said. The new strategy — and accompanying action plan — will define how Europe should tackle this escalating crisis from 2026 to 2030. “Already too many have been lost to death, addiction and violence caused by traffickers. Now is the time for us to turn the tides,” he added.

Europe’s security does not depend solely on our physical borders and their defense. It rests on something far less visible, and far more sensitive: the digital networks that keep our societies, economies and democracies functioning every second of the day. > Without resilient networks, the daily workings of Europe would grind to a > halt, and so too would any attempt to build meaningful defense readiness. A recent study by Copenhagen Economics confirms that telecom operators have become the first line of defense in Europe’s security architecture. Their networks power essential services ranging from emergency communications and cross-border healthcare to energy systems, financial markets, transport and, increasingly, Europe’s defense capabilities. Without resilient networks, the daily workings of Europe would grind to a halt, and so too would any attempt to build meaningful defense readiness. This reality forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth: Europe cannot build credible defense capabilities on top of an economically strained, structurally fragmented telecom sector. Yet this is precisely the risk today. A threat landscape outpacing Europe’s defenses The challenges facing Europe are evolving faster than our political and regulatory systems can respond. In 2023 alone, ENISA recorded 188 major incidents, causing 1.7 billion lost user-hours, the equivalent of taking entire cities offline. While operators have strengthened their systems and outage times fell by more than half in 2024 compared with the previous year, despite a growing number of incidents, the direction of travel remains clear: cyberattacks are more sophisticated, supply chains more vulnerable and climate-related physical disruptions more frequent. Hybrid threats increasingly target civilian digital infrastructure as a way to weaken states. Telecom networks, once considered as technical utilities, have become a strategic asset essential to Europe’s stability. > Europe cannot deploy cross-border defense capabilities without resilient, > pan-European digital infrastructure. Nor can it guarantee NATO > interoperability with 27 national markets, divergent rules and dozens of > sub-scale operators unable to invest at continental scale. Our allies recognize this. NATO recently encouraged members to spend up to 1.5 percent of their GDP on protecting critical infrastructure. Secretary General Mark Rutte also urged investment in cyber defense, AI, and cloud technologies, highlighting the military benefits of cloud scalability and edge computing – all of which rely on high-quality, resilient networks. This is a clear political signal that telecom security is not merely an operational matter but a geopolitical priority. The link between telecoms and defense is deeper than many realize. As also explained in the recent Arel report, Much More than a Network, modern defense capabilities rely largely on civilian telecom networks. Strong fiber backbones, advanced 5G and future 6G systems, resilient cloud and edge computing, satellite connectivity, and data centers form the nervous system of military logistics, intelligence and surveillance. Europe cannot deploy cross-border defense capabilities without resilient, pan-European digital infrastructure. Nor can it guarantee NATO interoperability with 27 national markets, divergent rules and dozens of sub-scale operators unable to invest at continental scale. Fragmentation has become one of Europe’s greatest strategic vulnerabilities. The reform Europe needs: An investment boost for digital networks At the same time, Europe expects networks to become more resilient, more redundant, less dependent on foreign technology and more capable of supporting defense-grade applications. Security and resilience are not side tasks for telecom operators, they are baked into everything they do. From procurement and infrastructure design to daily operations, operators treat these efforts as core principles shaping how networks are built, run and protected. Therefore, as the Copenhagen Economics study shows, the level of protection Europe now requires will demand substantial additional capital. > It is unrealistic to expect world-class, defense-ready infrastructure to > emerge from a model that has become structurally unsustainable. This is the right ambition, but the economic model underpinning the sector does not match these expectations. Due to fragmentation and over-regulation, Europe’s telecom market invests less per capita than global peers, generates roughly half the return on capital of operators in the United States and faces rising costs linked to expanding security obligations. It is unrealistic to expect world-class, defense-ready infrastructure to emerge from a model that has become structurally unsustainable. A shift in policy priorities is therefore essential. Europe must place investment in security and resilience at the center of its political agenda. Policy must allow this reality to be reflected in merger assessments, reduce overlapping security rules and provide public support where the public interest exceeds commercial considerations. This is not state aid; it is strategic social responsibility. Completing the single market for telecommunications is central to this agenda. A fragmented market cannot produce the secure, interoperable, large-scale solutions required for modern defense. The Digital Networks Act must simplify and harmonize rules across the EU, supported by a streamlined governance that distinguishes between domestic matters and cross-border strategic issues. Spectrum policy must also move beyond national silos, allowing Europe to avoid conflicts with NATO over key bands and enabling coherent next-generation deployments. Telecom policy nowadays is also defense policy. When we measure investment gaps in digital network deployment, we still tend to measure simple access to 5G and fiber. However, we should start considering that — if security, resilience and defense-readiness are to be taken into account — the investment gap is much higher that the €200 billion already estimated by the European Commission. Europe’s strategic choice The momentum for stronger European defense is real — but momentum fades if it is not seized. If Europe fails to modernize and secure its telecom infrastructure now, it risks entering the next decade with a weakened industrial base, chronic underinvestment, dependence on non-EU technologies and networks unable to support advanced defense applications. In that scenario, Europe’s democratic resilience would erode in parallel with its economic competitiveness, leaving the continent more exposed to geopolitical pressure and technological dependency. > If Europe fails to modernize and secure its telecom infrastructure now, it > risks entering the next decade with a weakened industrial base, chronic > underinvestment, dependence on non-EU technologies and networks unable to > support advanced defense applications. Europe still has time to change course and put telecoms at the center of its agenda — not as a technical afterthought, but as a core pillar of its defense strategy. The time for incremental steps has passed. Europe must choose to build the network foundations of its security now or accept that its strategic ambitions will remain permanently out of reach. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT * The sponsor is Connect Europe AISBL * The ultimate controlling entity is Connect Europe AISBL * The political advertisement is linked to advocacy on EU digital, telecom and industrial policy, including initiatives such as the Digital Networks Act, Digital Omnibus, and connectivity, cybersecurity, and defence frameworks aimed at strengthening Europe’s digital competitiveness. More information here.

BRUSSELS — The United States has hit out at an upcoming EU space law that it says would place “unacceptable regulatory burdens” on American space companies. In a response to a consultation published Tuesday, the U.S. State Department said it has “deep concern” about the EU’s proposed Space Act. It accuses the EU of going after successful U.S. space companies via the legislation, saying its rules “appear targeted specifically against U.S. companies due solely to their size, prominence, and successful track record of innovation …. such unfair and unwarranted regulations are unacceptable to the United States and must be removed.” The EU proposed the law in June in an attempt to dial up regulatory oversight of satellite operators — including requiring them to tackle their impact on space debris and pollution, or face significant fines. There are more than 10,000 satellites now in orbit as companies such as Elon Musk’s Starlink have increasingly ventured into low-Earth orbit, from where stronger telecommunication connections can be established but which requires more satellites to ensure full coverage. The legislation does “not take into account that space operations are still relatively new and novel, and as such, are not yet ripe for strict regulation,” the U.S. said, even arguing that goes against the spirit of the trade agreement between the EU and U.S. agreed in August.  Cybersecurity provisions in the proposal are also under attack. The legislation proposes an “unbalanced approach,” the U.S. argued, saying a shortsighted approach could threaten technological advancement in space. European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said in a statement that the law creates “a real single market for space” and cuts red tape. The law would reduce administrative burden by coordinating requirements across the bloc and would also make space companies more reliable, Regnier said.

BRUSSELS — Europe is finally firing back at Elon Musk. Aerospace companies Airbus, Leonardo and Thales said Thursday they had reached a preliminary agreement to combine their space activities to create the kind of European champion that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has envisaged. Announcing “a leading European player in space,” the companies said they would combine their satellite and space systems manufacturing into a €6.5 billion business that will employ around 25,000 people across Europe.  The three-way deal seeks to create a challenger to Musk’s SpaceX — especially in low-earth orbit satellites of the type that power his Starlink internet service. SpaceX’s projected 2025 revenue is around $15 billion. The deal — initially named Project Bromo after a volcano in Indonesia — has been a long time coming. Talks among the three companies were complicated by the involvement of five governments as shareholders or partners. And winning antitrust approval was always going to be a tall order. France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the U.K. will all have an interest in the new company, which will be headquartered in Toulouse in southern France but will be split out into five different legal entities to preserve sovereign interests. The governance structure mirrors that of European missilemaker MDBA.  Airbus, the European aerospace giant, will own a 35 percent stake, while Leonardo of Italy and Thales of France will own 32.5 percent each. There will be a sole yet-to-be-named CEO and managing directors for each country, an Airbus spokesperson told POLITICO. French Economy Minister Roland Lescure hailed the announcement as “excellent news.” “The creation of a European satellite champion allows us to increase investment in research and innovation in this strategic sector and reinforce our sovereignty in a context of intense global competition,” he said in a post on Bluesky. Sounding rather less enthusiastic, a spokesperson for German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche said Berlin was following the possible consolidation of the European aerospace industry “with great interest” and was in touch with Airbus and its defense subsidiary. LEAGUE OF CHAMPIONS France and Germany have been vocal on the need to create continental champions — with industry chiefs from both countries recently issuing a joint appeal to Brussels to relax its merger rules to enable companies to gain scale and compete in a global setting. In a twist of irony, the deal involves a company — Airbus — that is widely seen as the only European corporate champion ever built. With roots dating back to 1970, Airbus was created in its current incarnation through a Franco-German-Spanish merger in 2000. France and Germany each own 10 percent stakes and Spain 4 percent. Italy has a 30 percent stake in Leonardo, which in turn owns 33 percent of Thales Alenia Space.  The new company will pool, build and develop “a comprehensive portfolio of complementary technologies and end-to-end solutions, from space infrastructure to services.” It is expected to generate annual synergies producing “mid triple digit million euro” operating income five years after closing, which is expected in 2027, according to a press release.  MERGER HURDLE The tie-up requires a green light from the Commission’s competition directorate, which will have to weigh the tension between its current rulebook for reviewing mergers and von der Leyen’s desire to pick European winners. The joint venture would compete with overseas players on satellites for commercial telecommunications. However, it would face scant competition for military and public procurement tenders in the EU, for example with the European Space Agency (ESA). These are typically restricted to home-grown bidders. Rolf Densing, ESA’s director of operations, has voiced concerns that the deal would leave the agency with limited options for sourcing satellite contracts. Germany’s OHB would be left as its last remaining competitor. OHB’s CEO Marco Fuchs has warned that the deal threatens to create a monopoly that would harm customers and European industry. That could herald a rerun of the tensions that the Commission faced when it blocked a Franco-German train industry merger between Siemens and Alstom in 2019 — although today the political environment is more favorable to the companies.  The Commission’s competition directorate is under pressure to broaden its views on mergers to take into account the bloc’s wider push for growth and an increased capacity to compete with U.S. and Chinese players. A review of the bloc’s merger guidelines is due next year, according to the Commission’s latest work program. Alexandre Léchenet in Paris and Tom Schmidtgen in Berlin contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS — Intelligence agencies across Europe are burying decades of distrust and starting to build a shared intelligence operation to counter Russian aggression — a move accelerated by the new American capriciousness in supporting its traditional allies. In the past year, many national capitals have embedded intelligence officials in their Brussels representation offices. The European Union’s in-house intelligence unit has started briefing top-level officials. And the bloc is toying with the idea to build up stronger, CIA-style powers — long considered unthinkable. The push for deeper intelligence cooperation accelerated sharply after the Trump administration abruptly halted the sharing of battlefield intelligence with Kyiv last March. Donald Trump “deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for bringing the services of Europe together,” said one Western intelligence official, who was granted anonymity to disclose details of how they cooperated with American counterparts. POLITICO spoke with seven intelligence and security officials who described how the rupture in transatlantic trust is driving Europe’s spy agencies to move faster — and closer — than ever before. It’s all part of a bigger reconsideration of practices. European intelligence services have also started reviewing more closely how they share information with U.S. counterparts. The Dutch military and civil intelligence services told local paper De Volkskrant on Saturday they’d stopped sharing certain information with their U.S. counterparts, citing political interference and human rights concerns. Officials fear that transatlantic forums, including the defense alliance NATO, will become less reliable platforms to share intelligence. “There is a sense that there could be less commitment on the part of the United States in the months to come in sharing the intelligence they have — both inside NATO and at large,” said Antonio Missiroli, the former Assistant-Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges at NATO. Security services are still overcoming decades-old trust issues. New revelations that Hungarian intelligence officials disguised as diplomats tried to infiltrate the EU institutions show how governments within the EU still keep close watch over each other. To cope with the distrust, some leading spy agencies are pushing to set up groups of trusted countries instead of running things through Brussels. CLUB DE BERNE Unlike tight-knit spy alliances like the Five Eyes, European Union member countries have long struggled to forge strong partnerships on intelligence sharing. National security remains firmly in the hands of national capitals, with Brussels playing only a coordinating role. One way European services have communicated traditionally is through a secretive network known as the Club de Berne, created nearly 50 years ago in the Swiss city it is named after. The club has no headquarters, no secretariat and meets only twice a year. In recent years, the group has coordinated its meetings to roughly align with the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. But the Club is hardly a mirror image of the EU. Malta has never joined, Bulgaria only recently signed on, and Austria was suspended for a time over concerns it was too soft on Moscow before being readmitted in 2022. Non-EU countries such as Switzerland, Norway and the U.K. are also members. Donald Trump “deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for bringing the services of Europe together,” said one Western intelligence official, who was granted anonymity to disclose details of how they cooperated with American counterparts. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images “Club de Berne is an information sharing architecture a bit like Europol. It’s designed to share a certain kind of information for a particular function,” said Philip Davies, director of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies in London. “But it’s fairly bounded and the information that’s being shared is potentially quite anodyne because you’re not plugging into secure systems and [there are] national caveats.” Major European Union intelligence players — France, the Netherlands, Germany, and until 2019, the U.K. — saw little value in sharing sensitive information with all EU countries, fearing it could fall into the wrong hands. Eastern European services, like Bulgaria’s, were believed to be filled with Russian moles, said Missiroli. One Bulgarian security official argued that was no longer the case, with the old guard largely retired. But while it offered some mode of collaboration, the Club de Berne also left Brussels’ EU-level officials largely in the dark. “The problem with talking about European intelligence sharing is that European intelligence sharing is not the same thing as EU intelligence sharing,” said Davies. CALLING ON THE EU Recent geopolitical shifts have forced the European Union to rethink its approach. Former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö called last year for the EU to create a CIA-style agency, coordinated from Brussels, in a landmark preparedness report at the request of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Niinistö laid out the idea of a “fully fledged intelligence cooperation service at the EU level that can serve both the strategic and operational needs,” while adding that “an anti-sabotage network” is needed to protect infrastructure. If there is such a thing as a collective EU intelligence agency, the European Union’s in-house Intelligence and Situation Centre (INTCEN) at the European External Action Service (EEAS) is the closest to it. The center conducts analysis based on the voluntary contributions by EU countries. Spies from national agencies do secondments at the center, which helps building up ties with national intelligence. Croatian intelligence chief Daniel Markić took over the helm of INTCEN in September 2024 on a mission to beef up information-sharing with the agency and get direct intelligence to EU leaders like von der Leyen and foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. Together with its military counterpart — the EU Military Staff Intelligence Directorate — the two services form the Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity (SIAC), which produces shared intelligence assessments for EU decision-makers. In April, SIAC held its annual meeting in Brussels, this time drawing top officials of the European agencies to attend, along with Kallas.  Spy chiefs at that meeting underlined a growing push for Europe to build its own independent intelligence capabilities. But some also worried that overemphasizing the need for autonomy could further weaken ties with the U.S., creating the very gaps Europe is trying to avoid. TRUST ISSUES Slowly but surely, Brussels is building up its own intelligence community. For instance, intelligence liaison officers now exist in most permanent representations of EU member countries in Brussels. The Belgian Security Services (VSSE), which are officially tasked with overseeing spying activities around the EU institutions in Brussels, have also briefed members of the European Parliament on tactics used to coerce lawmakers into foreign espionage. Still, one European intelligence source told POLITICO that while cooperation between EU countries was now “at its best in modern history,” agencies still work first and foremost for their own national governments. That is a key stumbling block. According to Robert Gorelick, the retired head of mission of the U.S. CIA in Italy, “The reason that an EU-wide intelligence service couldn’t exist is that there is too much variety in how national agencies work.” What’s worse, he added: “There are too many countries — 27 — for there to be such trust in sharing.” Some countries have leaned toward setting up smaller ad hoc groups. After the U.S. paused its intelligence sharing with Ukraine in March, a Coalition of the Willing led by France and the United Kingdom met in Paris and agreed to expand Kyiv’s access to European-operated intelligence, surveillance technology and satellite data. The Netherlands is looking at beefing up cooperation with other European services, like the United Kingdom, Poland, France, Germany and the Nordics — including sharing raw data. “That has been scaled up enormously,” Erik Akerboom, the head of the Dutch civil intelligence service, told De Volkskrant. Yet there is still a long way to go to build enough trust between 27 EU members with differing national priorities. In October, it was revealed that Hungarian intelligence officials disguised as diplomats tried to infiltrate EU institutions while Olivér Várhelyi (now a European commissioner) was Hungary’s ambassador to the bloc, and place Orbán cronies in key positions. Niinistö, who wrote the EU’s preparedness report last year, told POLITICO in an interview this month that a full-fledged EU intelligence agency was still “a question of the future.” He added: “It comes to the word trust when we talk about preparedness, because without trusting we can’t cooperate very much.”