From the headline I expected some kinds of new communication satellites. But instead this is "just" a marketplace where government entities can purchase services. The satellites were already in orbit and already "EU sovereign", this is about making it easier to use them and centralizing capacity planning
In a way this is the dry run for when IRIS² starts service in another four years or so, the European Starshield equivalent
I honestly wonder whether the EU can afford to spend on technological sovereignty. With an aging population and the need to maintain welfare states, governments will have to allocate more and more of future budgets to expanding and sustaining welfare programs (statutory health insurance, pensions, unemployment benefits, etc.). That ultimately means higher taxes, a larger government workforce, and a shrinking private sector. Maybe they will have enough money to maintain the existing status quo, but not sure where the additional capital would come from to invest in digital sovereignty.
"EU welfare state" is a meme that doesn't survive looking closely at the actual figures. Especially if you compare things like state pensions properly; the US moves these into a different column labelled "social security", but that doesn't mean they're not part of the state!
Note that the alternative is sending money overseas to rent US infrastructure. It may make a lot of sense to deploy spending locally where it stays in the economy rather than overseas, a standard "import substitution" play.
While the EU welfare is not that much larger than the US (maybe 5% more of GDP), the US also has much more money, a larger portion of the population working, and higher population growth. They also have the technical and business knowledge in tech that the EU lacks (e.g. silicon, rocketry, hyperscalers, etc).
Most of the "digital sovereignty" stuff is spending money on companies that intend to sell services at a profit and pay taxes on it. So they absolutely can afford to do it (and governments have more routes to getting money back than just exits) provided you back the right companies. That's probably more easily achieved in digital sovereignty than space launch though.
china has been an invaluable partner. Green energy supplies a large part of energy consumed in europe now, and car electrification has become popular thanks to cheap chinese EVs. I will not be surprised to see chinese drones or weapons too
The PRC has stated it will continue to back Russia against Ukraine [0] which is a red line for the EU. Additionally, the PRC has been running disinfo ops against EU member states tech exports [1] while still attempting industrial espionage on European institutions [2].
China will not become a trusted partner of the EU as long as:
1. It continues to conduct industrial espionage against EU institutions
2. Attempts to undermine EU industrial and dual use exports
3. It continues to support Russia diplomatically and materially at the expense of Ukraine
4. It attempts to undermine the EU as an institution [3][4][5][6]
5. It continues to threaten EU nationals through physical [7] and legal [8] intimidation.
It's the same reason trust has reduced in the US as well.
Better dealing with neither in that case - which is the what the EU is doing.
This is why the EU has made a defense and technology partnerships with India (Arunachal) [0], Vietnam (Hoang Sa) [1], Japan (Senkaku) [2], and South Korea (Yellow Sea) [3] and is indirectly supporting Taiwan [4].
Interesting how you also ignore the fact that the PRC has attempted to personally harm EU nationals in the past 2 years through physical and legal intimidation.
Not sure why you are getting downvoted - I'm wondering the same thing. Catching up is inherently more expensive than just maintaining a lead. And on top of that the EU pensioners will oppose any reallocation of resources outside of their retirement / pension schemes. The EU does have more fiscal headroom than the US, ie. lower debt per GDP and lower debt per capita - so through borrowing they could mobilize some more funds. But that's about it and I'm doubtful that's going to be enough.
The EU has the capacity, but will be working closely with other partners like India, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Vietnam, and the UAE as capital and/or technology partners.
For example, Eutelsat - which is providing the backbone for GOVSATCOM and IRIS2 - is a three-way partnership between India's Bharti Group (Sunil Mittal), the French, and the UK. Or GCAP where Japan's Mitsubishi Group is acting as both a technology and capital partner to Italy and the UK.
This was also a major driver behind the EU-India Defense Pact and the EU-Vietnam Comprehensive Strategic Partnership - both of which were overshadowed by the EU-India FTA.
A multilateral organization like the EU has the muscle to integrate and cooperate with other partners, which is something that shouldn't be underestimated, as this builds resilience via redundancy.
Edit: Interesting how this is the second time [0] in the past few weeks where an HN comment I wrote that was optimistic about the EU's capacity was downvoted. There's a reason the PRC is still conducting industrial espionage on EU institutions [1].
> Interesting how this is the second time [0] in the past few weeks where an HN comment I wrote that was optimistic about the EU's capacity was downvoted.
Nothing new there, but I wouldn't assume Chinese bot army being behind it. The Russians, American MAGA, European alt-right each have an interest in such suppression (and RU and USA also conduct industrial espionage on EU). You may assume each of these parties is present in a thread about European sovereignty, but either way the mods discourage any discussion about moderation. You're best off emailing one of them.
Absolutely, but negating and distracting from the fact that EU governments have been publicly calling out Chinese disinfo ops [0][1] over the past 2-3 years to a degree not seen since Russia began hybrid warfare against the EU in the 2010s is unneccesary.
> With an aging population and the need to maintain welfare states, governments will have to allocate more and more of future budgets to expanding and sustaining welfare programs (statutory health insurance, pensions, unemployment benefits, etc.). That ultimately means higher taxes, a larger government workforce, and a shrinking private sector.
And China excluding the welfare part - China has an extremely weak welfare system for a state at it's economic level and the Xi admin remains deeply opposed to what it derogatorily terms as "Welfarism" [0].
"Arianespace is pathetically behind the times as launch services provider and no one is even cost competitive with SpaceX" types of offhand Internet comments are just literal propaganda with zero substance. [WARN] messages on Linux Kernel consoles bear more importance than those.
The EU and USA have similar total GDP measured by PPP, and USA spends 3.4%. So 10% would be wildly excessive by any measure. In addition the EU has three times the population of the unstated enemy, Russia.
But it's true that this initiative is happening too late.
That's nonsense. The main security threat for the EU is Russia, a state with a GDP roughly equal to Italy's. We only need to keep up our military spending with that.
What Mark Rutte has been saying recently is mostly buzzwords for peach daddy's ears (and has been criticises by EU members as it misrepresents our current goals and motivations).
In a way this is the dry run for when IRIS² starts service in another four years or so, the European Starshield equivalent
Note that the alternative is sending money overseas to rent US infrastructure. It may make a lot of sense to deploy spending locally where it stays in the economy rather than overseas, a standard "import substitution" play.
Chinese weapons .. no. Plenty of traditional EU arms companies to do that, and this is one area where I'm OK with the traditional EU protectionism.
A more interesting question is the two big countries which are part of NATO, on the European continent, but NOT part of the EU: UK and Turkey.
The PRC has stated it will continue to back Russia against Ukraine [0] which is a red line for the EU. Additionally, the PRC has been running disinfo ops against EU member states tech exports [1] while still attempting industrial espionage on European institutions [2].
China will not become a trusted partner of the EU as long as:
1. It continues to conduct industrial espionage against EU institutions
2. Attempts to undermine EU industrial and dual use exports
3. It continues to support Russia diplomatically and materially at the expense of Ukraine
4. It attempts to undermine the EU as an institution [3][4][5][6]
5. It continues to threaten EU nationals through physical [7] and legal [8] intimidation.
It's the same reason trust has reduced in the US as well.
---
[0] - https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316875/ch...
[1] - https://www.defense.gouv.fr/desinformation/nos-analyses-froi...
[2] - https://www.intelligenceonline.fr/asie-pacifique/2026/01/14/...
[3] - https://fddi.fudan.edu.cn/_t2515/57/f8/c21257a743416/page.ht...
[4] - https://www.ft.com/content/1ed0b791-a447-48f4-9c38-abbf5f283...
[5] - https://www.ft.com/content/81700fc4-8f23-4bec-87e9-59a83f215...
[6] - https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/ex-mitarbeiter...
[7] - https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2024/07/02/deux-espio...
[8] - https://www.intelligenceonline.fr/asie-pacifique/2025/12/23/...
This is why the EU has made a defense and technology partnerships with India (Arunachal) [0], Vietnam (Hoang Sa) [1], Japan (Senkaku) [2], and South Korea (Yellow Sea) [3] and is indirectly supporting Taiwan [4].
Interesting how you also ignore the fact that the PRC has attempted to personally harm EU nationals in the past 2 years through physical and legal intimidation.
[0] - https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/security-and-defence-eu-and-...
[1] - https://www.eeas.europa.eu/euvn-comprehensive-strategic-part...
[2] - https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/202...
[3] - https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/security-and-defence-partner...
[4] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/taiwan-says-european-cou...
For example, Eutelsat - which is providing the backbone for GOVSATCOM and IRIS2 - is a three-way partnership between India's Bharti Group (Sunil Mittal), the French, and the UK. Or GCAP where Japan's Mitsubishi Group is acting as both a technology and capital partner to Italy and the UK.
This was also a major driver behind the EU-India Defense Pact and the EU-Vietnam Comprehensive Strategic Partnership - both of which were overshadowed by the EU-India FTA.
A multilateral organization like the EU has the muscle to integrate and cooperate with other partners, which is something that shouldn't be underestimated, as this builds resilience via redundancy.
Edit: Interesting how this is the second time [0] in the past few weeks where an HN comment I wrote that was optimistic about the EU's capacity was downvoted. There's a reason the PRC is still conducting industrial espionage on EU institutions [1].
[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46696996
[1] - https://www.intelligenceonline.fr/asie-pacifique/2026/01/14/...
Nothing new there, but I wouldn't assume Chinese bot army being behind it. The Russians, American MAGA, European alt-right each have an interest in such suppression (and RU and USA also conduct industrial espionage on EU). You may assume each of these parties is present in a thread about European sovereignty, but either way the mods discourage any discussion about moderation. You're best off emailing one of them.
[0] - https://www.defense.gouv.fr/desinformation/nos-analyses-froi...
[1] - https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/nieuws/2024/10/nederlandse...
All of this is also true in the US.
[0] - http://theory.people.com.cn/n1/2021/1116/c40531-32283350.htm...
So this is great and all but it's too little too late.
The EU and USA have similar total GDP measured by PPP, and USA spends 3.4%. So 10% would be wildly excessive by any measure. In addition the EU has three times the population of the unstated enemy, Russia.
But it's true that this initiative is happening too late.
Then again, in the current system it makes sense, since there is no EU army, leading to huge overhead for each country.