Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said on Wednesday that he had asked the company for an "urgent restoration of equal rules for Polish customers."
Under changes to Starlink’s roaming service, Poland has been excluded from a common European region covering countries including Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, France, Spain and Italy.
Starlink says accounts registered in Poland are intended for use exclusively in Poland. Polish customers using its unlimited roaming plan can use the satellite internet service abroad for up to 30 days on a single trip.
After that, they must return to Poland to reset the period, change their country of registration or move to a more expensive plan.
"I do not accept the answer that this simply has to be this way," Gawkowski wrote on X.
If SpaceX attributes the difference to local regulatory requirements, he added, the company should identify the specific rules involved.
"Polish citizens cannot be treated worse simply because a global corporation has decided so," he said.
Starlink, owned by Musk’s SpaceX, provides high-speed internet through a constellation of thousands of satellites. The system has become particularly important in Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
A Starlink terminal used by the Ukrainian army. Photo: Mil.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Poland has played a major role in supplying the service to Ukraine. In April, then-Ukrainian Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Ukraine had about 50,000 Starlink terminals, with Poland providing 29,500, more than any other foreign partner.
Polish officials have also said Warsaw spends about USD 50 million a year maintaining Starlink services for Ukraine.
The new rules add to a history of tensions between Polish officials and Musk over the system.
In March 2025, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and Musk clashed publicly on X after Musk wrote that Ukraine’s front line would collapse if its forces lost access to Starlink.
Sikorski responded that if SpaceX proved to be an unreliable supplier, Poland would have to seek alternatives.
Musk told the Polish minister to "be quiet" and called him a "small man," while saying Starlink would not cut Ukraine off from the service.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also entered the dispute, rejecting suggestions that Washington had threatened to withdraw Starlink access from Ukraine.
More recently, Ukrainian officials said Russian forces had been using Starlink terminals on drones despite the service being unavailable officially in Russia. SpaceX later said it had taken measures to prevent unauthorized Russian use, a step welcomed by Sikorski.
Starlink has become essential to both civilian and military communications in Ukraine, particularly where conventional telecommunications infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR/PAP