Starlink, Italy and the EU
NATO comes to Protect the Baltic Sea Cables. Bitcoin and Russia
Digital Conflicts is a bi-weekly briefing on the intersections of digital culture, AI, cybersecurity, digital rights, data privacy, and tech policy with a European focus.
Brought to you with journalistic integrity by Guerre di Rete, in partnership with the University of Bologna's Centre for Digital Ethics.
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N.20 - 22 January 2025
In this issue:
The European alternatives to Starlink
NATO comes to Protect the Cables
And more
Iris2 and GovSatCom: the European alternatives and Italy’s Role
One of the many issues raised by the potential €1.5 billion contract between Starlink and the Italian government is that the same services would also be provided by the GovSatCom (or GOVSATCOM) project, a specific initiative within the European Union's space program aimed at creating a secure satellite communications system that European governments can use for disaster response and security needs.
"A key element of the GOVSATCOM system is the Communications Hub. This IT platform will bring together both commercial and government satellite communications capabilities into a single service accessible to European governments", European Space Flight wrote last September. "The system is expected to be fully operational by mid-2027".
These timelines were reiterated in recent days by Christophe Grudler (Renew Europe, France), a member of the European Parliament and former Iris2 rapporteur, who told Euractiv that "the Italian deal would be a 'strategic mistake'", adding that Italian taxpayers would be paying twice for two systems.
"Grudler," Euractiv continues, "also stressed that the EU's GovSatCom program will provide most of the services Italy is seeking to access through the Starlink deal from 2025. He warned that Musk's company would replace Italian industry and cost jobs, sovereignty and strategic autonomy".
According to the EU's official website, EU GOVSATCOM will provide a wide range of communication services (e.g. voice, email, chat, messaging, videoconferencing, video, access to specific information systems) for crisis management. "The main users will be civil protection teams, internal security forces and police, military forces, humanitarian aid workers and local EU and national delegations. "EU GOVSATCOM will also support the operation of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), which are increasingly used in crisis management and surveillance missions. By providing a secure and stable satellite communications link, it will support both the control of RPAS and the retrieval of data collected by the system".
It will, of course, also provide services to diplomatic networks, for which "access to a means of communication completely independent of host states is a fundamental requirement".
In December, Spacenews also reported that the EU's GovSatCom project would begin offering services in 2025 using the capacity of geostationary satellites operated by member states.
Meanwhile, in those same December days, the European Commission and the European Space Agency signed contracts with an industrial consortium for the development of a secure connectivity constellation at a total cost of €10.6 billion [so not €10 billion from Italy alone – worth repeating, even if it is obvious, ed]. This is for the development of the Constellation of Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security via Satellite, known as IRIS², composed of over 290 satellites, which should be operational by early 2031. IRIS² will provide secure communications to European governments for civil and security applications. It will also provide commercial satellite services, such as residential broadband.
Two Different Contests with the Same Players
So there is GovSatCom and there is Iris2. More broadly, we should remember that there are two different "games" being played. One is secure communications for government, military, diplomatic and crisis management; the other is residential broadband.
Europe is playing both games, on different timelines and with delays compared to its competitors. Starlink/SpaceX, a direct competitor to the European projects, is also competing in both arenas, targeting both government communications and residential broadband. The Italian government, for its part, is engaged in at least two parallel negotiations with Starlink-SpaceX for both areas (and here I continue to use the two names interchangeably because that is how they are now commonly referred to in Italy).
The second area, broadband, is also the subject of many Italian parliamentary questions and motions. One such motion links the two separate negotiations. Indeed, the authors of a parliamentary motion by the Italian Democratic Party in early December noted: "For years, the European Commission has been working on the development and implementation of a 'networked' satellite system, analogous to Starlink, called 'GovSatCom', with the aim of ensuring a secure European communications infrastructure, shared and protected against external interference, and avoiding the dependence of the strategic telecommunications of the European Union and its Member States on entirely private infrastructures. Italy participates in this program through Telespazio".
From the perspective of residential broadband for general users, the application mentions that Starlink is already authorized to provide low latency broadband in Italy (serving approximately 50,000 users). However, the Undersecretary of State for Technological Innovation, Alessio Butti, stated that Starlink has been identified as a possible solution to the delays in the implementation of the Italy at 1 Giga Plan, funded by the PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan), to cover the most remote and inaccessible areas of Italy with broadband "in a period estimated between 6 and 9 months".
Let's take a step back. It should be noted that this is happening in a wider context of delays in the internet broadband infrastructure plan and tensions (reported by Il Sole24Ore) between Fibercop, controlled by the US fund KKR – now in control of the network infrastructure – and OpenFiber, controlled by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (an Italian state-owned financial institution that manages and invests public savings).
The motion therefore asks whether the government has "carefully considered the risks associated with investing PNRR resources in the Starlink proposal, including the consequent failure to complete the ultra-broadband network within the service standards established at European level throughout the Italian territory, as well as the impact on the structure and functioning of the internal market".
It also raises the question of whether "the potential combined effect of assigning Starlink coverage in the 'grey areas' of the Italy at 1 Giga Plan, financed by the PNRR, together with the management of the connectivity and telecommunications infrastructure for Italian diplomatic offices and the mobile stations of Italian military ships, would create risks for national and European security, given that the control of strategic infrastructure would be in the hands of a foreign company controlled by a person who is poised to play a significant role in the incoming U.S. presidential administration".
In this complex matter (the Italy at 1 Giga Plan itself is quite extensive and cannot be fully explored here) and in these various competitions, there are more questions than answers.
The only clear takeaway so far is that any contracts awarded to Starlink/SpaceX-especially for GovSatCom communications-would be a major blow to European projects. If we were to make a simplified list of winners and losers, the winners would be SpaceX commercially, Elon Musk politically, and the U.S. government strategically. The losers would be the European project and its aspirations for strategic advancement in the space economy and common defense. As for Italy, would it be a winner or a loser? It may take years to find out. But the answer also depends on how much we believe in and bet on Europe's role in the economic and geopolitical spheres, and whether we believe that harming Europe could be good or bad for Italy itself.
BALTIC SEA
NATO comes to protect the cables
You may recall a few weeks ago we dedicated a special feature to the tensions in the Baltic Sea that have recently materialized in the investigation of damaged Internet cables. We called it "the Baltic Sea breaking point" to indicate that this was neither a temporary nor a minor issue.
In fact, there were other suspicious incidents at the end of December. As a result, NATO announced a few days ago that it would send several ships to monitor the submarine infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, according to the Finnish newspaper Yle. The ships will remain at sea until April, positioned near energy and data cables to deter any potential sabotage attempts.
Finland is investigating the oil tanker Eagle S, part of Moscow's "shadow fleet," which is suspected of breaking an electrical cable between Finland and Estonia, as well as four telecommunications cables over the Christmas period, Politico reported.
BITCOIN RUSSIA
Russia uses bitcoin in foreign trade, finance minister says
Source: Reuters