The Commission welcomes the political agreement reached today between the European Parliament and EU Member States on the Union Secure Connectivity Programme 2023-2027 with a budget of €2.4 billion. The programme aims at deploying an EU satellite constellation, to be called ‘IRIS²' (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite).

Satellite based connectivity through Low earth orbit will also enable Europe to provide ultra-secured connectivity to armed forces. The EU space-based secure communication system seeks to meet these increased and evolving needs and ensure guaranteed access in an unrestricted manner, by avoiding dependencies on third-countries and reinforcing the resilience of our value chains.

It will include the latest quantum communication technologies for secure encryption by integrating the European Quantum Communication Infrastructure (EuroQCI). It will be based on the development of innovative and disruptive technologies and on the leveraging of the New Space ecosystem.

The objective of the programme is:

• To establish a sovereign space-based secure connectivity system for the provision of secure, autonomous, reliable and cost-effective satellite governmental communication services to governmental users supporting the protection of critical infrastructures, surveillance, external actions, crisis management and applications that are critical for the economy, environment, security and defence;
• To enable the provision of commercial services by the private sector to facilitate, among others, further development of worldwide high-speed broadband, and seamless connectivity including in communication dead zones and increasing cohesion across Member States' territories, thus contributing to fulfilling the objectives set in Europe's Digital Decade targets.

The Programme will boost the competitiveness of EU industry, including SMEs and start-ups, in the field of satellite communication solutions and services by spearheading innovation to ensure that technological advances and their governmental use act as a driver of innovation and wider commercialisation.

It builds on the Commission proposal to improve the resilience of EU communication services by developing and operating a multi-orbital connectivity infrastructure (with both space and ground segments), based on a public-partnership model.