March 25, 2025 – Eutelsat Group – French National Assembly
Where Sovereignty Meets Subsidy, and Innovation Waits for Committee Approval
When Eva Berneke, CEO of Eutelsat Group, appeared before the French National Assembly, it was supposed to be a confident display of European leadership in the high-stakes arena of space defense and communications. What actually unfolded was a masterclass in balancing optimism, technical ambiguity, and strategic contradiction, all wrapped in Eurocratic silk.
Let’s begin with the headline
Project: Iris²
It’s billed as Europe’s answer to Starlink, a sovereign constellation of 290 satellites delivering secure communications across the continent and beyond. Originally priced at €2.4 billion and scheduled for 2027, Iris² now clocks in at a breezy €10.6 billion and might become operational around 2031–32. Assuming, of course, no further “minor” complications arise, like industrial fragmentation, launch bottlenecks, or global economic turbulence. You know, just the usual things that delay megaprojects.
Berneke proudly presented Iris² as a strategic leap forward. But sovereignty, in this case, comes with a footnote.
While the constellation is meant to liberate Europe from dependence on foreign space infrastructure, Eutelsat continues to procure critical components from outside Europe. Terminals are sourced from the United States. Antennas come from Canada. The chipsets, the digital brains of the system, are built in Taiwan and South Korea. And when it comes to launch capability? Most satellites still hitch rides on SpaceX rockets, because Europe’s own Ariane 6 launcher is fully booked, ironically, many of those slots are reserved by Amazon’s Project Kuiper.
So in a project whose entire point is autonomy, the supply chain reads like a global import directory. It’s a space program by IKEA, but you assemble it using parts from five rival continents and a single Allen key.
When pressed on this by Romain Tonussi, Berneke gamely blamed the delays on Europe’s insistence on using a sovereign supply chain. But her own admission undermined that position: the sovereign supply chain doesn’t exist yet. What Europe insists on is aspirational, not operational. It’s like deciding to win the Tour de France before you’ve built a bicycle factory.
Then there’s the financial piece.
Eutelsat’s stock saw a jaw-dropping spike, rising sevenfold, after rumors of the U.S. pulling Starlink access from Ukraine. This surge was followed by a dramatic crash. Berneke interpreted this as market validation of Eutelsat’s strategic value.
A more honest read is that investors were panic-trading a geopolitical hedge, and quickly realized that Eutelsat’s actual capacity in Ukraine remains far more limited than Starlink’s. Volatility isn’t confidence, it’s chaos in a suit.
Berneke’s responses during the hearing painted a picture of a company standing tall in the face of adversity. But under scrutiny, much of the strategy sounds like carefully rehearsed deflection.
When Corinne Vignon raised concerns about visibility and financial fragility, Berneke blamed Eutelsat’s low profile on its B2B model. But this sidesteps the real issue. Starlink is also fundamentally a B2B and B2C hybrid, yet even in government and defense circles, it dominates headlines, partnerships, and battlefield relevance.
Visibility isn’t about consumer branding. It’s about being first to deliver results when the stakes are highest.
The cost disparity between the two networks is damning. Eutelsat’s terminals cost upwards of €3,000. Starlink’s from €349. Berneke explained that Eutelsat’s devices are built for professional use. But she glossed over the main problem: Eutelsat hasn’t achieved anywhere near the scale required to bring prices down. Starlink has distributed millions of terminals. Eutelsat? Tens of thousands (really?). And yet there was no clear plan to close that gap. Just vague commitments and the classic fallback line: “We’re working on it.”
Ciao Ciao
In perhaps the most awkward turn, Berneke downplayed reports that Italy is considering a €1.5 billion contract with Starlink for encrypted military communications. This would make Italy the first major European country to bypass Iris² and buy into Elon Musk’s orbit. Berneke insisted Italy remains committed to the Iris² consortium. But her tone suggested she was reciting a diplomatic hope rather than reporting a reliable alliance.
A €1.5 billion flirtation is hardly an affair of convenience. If anything, it reveals just how thin the glue holding this consortium together really is.
On the matter of sovereignty, Berneke assured that Iris² satellites will be free of U.S. or UK export control restrictions, known as ITAR constraints. She cited internal governance measures, like security committees with French Ministry observers, as safeguards. But this assurance crumbles when considering that critical components of the system still come from ITAR-bound regions. Stripping ITAR labels off satellites doesn’t remove ITAR from the chips inside them.
When Bastien Lachaud challenged her on space pollution, Berneke took the high road, criticizing Starlink’s disposable satellite model. Yet she sidestepped the fact that OneWeb, Eutelsat’s own partner, has had significant failure rates in orbit, contributing to space debris. Eutelsat has signed onto space sustainability frameworks, but signing pledges doesn’t clean up orbit. And without launch scale, Eutelsat can’t even litter at Starlink levels, so it’s less “green by design” and more “green by underdeployment.”
Security and censorship brought more smoke than fire. When asked about Russian state media still being broadcast via Eutelsat satellites well after EU sanctions were in place, Berneke hid behind procedure. Eutelsat doesn’t proactively police content, she explained. They wait for formal sanctions, then act. The implication is clear: the company follows rules, not ethics. In a time of hybrid warfare and information influence, that’s a dangerous abdication of judgment.
Terminals & Microlaunchers
Later, when the topic of military terminals came up, Berneke claimed that Eutelsat is developing rugged, jamming-resistant, backpack-sized units for special forces. Unfortunately, these are still “in development.” Which means that right now, Eutelsat cannot offer what Starlink already deploys in active conflict zones. The terminals that do exist are expensive, cumbersome, and not widely distributed. That’s not capability, it’s a roadmap, with potholes.
On launch strategy, microlaunchers were mentioned as a potential bright spot. French startups like Latitude offer promising alternatives to the heavyweight, schedule-choked Ariane program. But Berneke’s endorsement was lukewarm. She praised the innovation, but placed no urgency behind it. So once again, something that could be a unique European advantage is relegated to the back seat, delayed by bureaucratic ambivalence and risk aversion.
The final dagger came in the discussion around geographic return, a hallmark of ESA’s policy, ensuring countries get industrial contracts in proportion to their financial contribution. Berneke called this approach “a real obstacle,” then said it would probably work anyway because France, Germany, and Italy are big players. So, in plain terms: equality slows us down, but the biggest countries still win. It’s the perfect metaphor for the entire Iris² project.
Europe’s Great Space Hope Is a Bureaucratic Comet Trail
Iris² is a noble ambition, tethered to institutional inertia. It is designed to reclaim Europe’s space autonomy, yet it leans heavily on global supply chains and geopolitical goodwill. Its budget has quadrupled, its timeline slipped five years, and its key partners are either looking West or struggling to align priorities. The commercial model is weaker than Starlink’s, the technology less mature, and the public messaging a mix of cautious hope and veiled panic.
Berneke presented a calm front, but her answers revealed a company and a continent struggling to define their role in the 21st-century space race. While SpaceX iterates weekly and Starlink scales globally, Europe is assembling its constellation by committee, praying that funding, regulation, and industrial policy don’t collide mid-orbit.
So yes, Europe has a satellite plan. And yes, it might one day work. But until then, it’s betting on a system still in planning, to solve crises that are already on fire.
And if you’re a soldier in Ukraine today, don’t worry. Iris² is coming to save you. Just hang in there. For six to eight more years.
