European telecom sovereignty dominated discussions at MWC26 Barcelona on March 3, 2026, as the heads of Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, and Eutelsat warned that regulatory fragmentation and underinvestment are leaving Europe behind the United States and China.
Operators Say They Are Positioned but Lack Ecosystem Support
Telefonica chief Marc Murtra said existing telecommunications infrastructure places operators at the center of all data flows, giving them a structural advantage in delivering sovereign services. However, he argued that local hyperscale-level software must be developed to unlock digital economies at scale.
Murtra stated it is naive to assume European companies will receive access to the advanced artificial intelligence products required for industrial use cases in the coming decade. “All these products are very hard to make and very expensive and I think we do have the know-how, but we don’t have the orchestration,” he said.
Eutelsat CEO Flags Fragmentation as a Core Obstacle
Jean-Francois Fallacher, CEO of Eutelsat, said Europe’s structure as a collection of 27 nations creates persistent fragmentation. He noted “there is always the temptation” to build local, national platforms to address sovereignty requirements rather than finance broader regional initiatives.
Fallacher said this fragmentation weakens Europe’s ability to compete with large US and Chinese satellite operators, which benefit from unified domestic markets and significant government backing.
Deutsche Telekom CEO Points to Industry 4.0 as the Defining Battleground
Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Hoettges said low margins in the European telecoms sector are limiting the capacity to invest in new services. He noted, however, that politicians alone cannot be held responsible for the competitive gap that has emerged.
Hoettges said the convergence of cloud storage, compute capacity, artificial intelligence, chipsets, and connectivity now creates a genuine opportunity to deliver on Industry 4.0 promises. The problem, he stated, is that the US has already moved well ahead in deploying these elements together.
“The US is investing in exactly these things. They have the chipsets, they have the data centres, they have the AI tools, they have the connectivity and on top of all that they are developing the automation tools that they can take advantage of all this production.”
Tim Hoettges, CEO, Deutsche Telekom
Europe Must Control Each Technology Layer to Compete
Hoettges stated that Europe must take ownership of every individual technology element — chipsets, data centres, AI tools, connectivity, and automation — if it intends to close the gap with the US and China. The three executives collectively framed European telecom sovereignty not as a political aspiration but as an economic and industrial necessity.
The session at MWC26 Barcelona reflected a broader concern among European operators that regulatory constraints and market fragmentation are compounding the region’s disadvantage in the global race for digital economy leadership. No specific policy proposals or timelines were presented during the session.