BRUSSELS, Belgium, Oct. 18, 2026 - The European Commission has proposed reserving the 2 GHz satellite band for European use, and US Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder has warned that the EU will face US retaliation over the plan, in an interview published on 18 October.

SpaceX has warned that reserving critical spectrum for European operators could cause interference, including for emergency use in Ukraine. US officials say the plan undermines technological competition, and four European telecom firms have signed a joint letter of intent for a spectrum bid.

According to Politico, the EU is working on five separate fronts to counter Starlink's dominance. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has backed a proposed joint aerospace venture between Airbus, Leonardo and Thales, while the EU's own IRIS² network has slipped, with its first launch now set for 2029.

Impact Insight. Radio spectrum is a finite resource: satellites and ground stations must share a limited set of frequencies without interfering, and regulators decide who gets which band. The link to planetary defense is indirect: the contest over who runs Europe's satellite networks shapes how crowded low Earth orbit becomes, and keeping near-Earth space safe depends on tracking and coordinating all of it.