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European defence companies are seeking to club together to form a rival to Elon Musk’s SpaceX within months, the head of the Italian manufacturing giant Leonardo has said.
Roberto Cingolani told CNBC that “emergency times” called for regulators to approve an alliance that would combine the satellite divisions of Leonardo and French aerospace groups Airbus and Thales.
It comes as European politicians grow increasingly uneasy about the bloc’s reliance on SpaceX and its internet subsidiary Starlink.
Concerns are fuelled by Mr Musk’s closeness to Donald Trump, who on Wednesday announced sweeping tariffs on countries around the world, including close allies.
Airbus, Thales and Leonardo have held early discussions with competition regulators about merging their satellite businesses, which would consolidate much of Europe’s manufacturing expertise into one venture.
The three companies have been in discussions for months over creating a satellite version of MBDA, the missile joint venture between Airbus, Leonardo and Britain’s BAE Systems.
Airbus is also a major shareholder in Arianespace, Europe’s biggest rocket company.
A similar proposal was opposed by EU regulators in 2019, but the companies hope that a renewed focus on European sovereignty amid the war in Ukraine and fraying relations with the US might have changed attitudes.
“At the moment, we are working together and trying to find whether there is possible good synergy, whether this is convenient from a market point of view and, of course, also whether this is acceptable from the anti-trust point of view,” Mr Cingolani said.
“The most relevant [thing] at the moment is to guarantee deterrence and security, global security content, more than the best price for a tank,” he added.
He said a deal in months was a “more reasonable” timeframe than years.
Discussions around the deal come as European governments seek an alternative to Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet business. Starlink has been a crucial part of Ukraine’s defence against Russia but Mr Musk has mused about turning it off.
Eutelsat, the French satellite company partly owned by the British government, has said its OneWeb system could help replace Starlink.
Airbus will manufacture Starlink’s second generation of satellites, which is likely to make up part of a European satellite network known as Iris2.
Talks between Starlink and Italy over a $1.6bn (£1.2bn) deal to provide internet services to the country’s military are believed to have stalled in recent weeks amid growing European concerns, despite a close relationship between Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Mr Musk.