EU Clears Telecom Italia's €700 Million Sale of Sparkle Subsea Unit to State-Led Consortium
April 16, 2026
The European Commission has granted regulatory approval for Telecom Italia (TIM) to sell its subsea cable subsidiary Sparkle, a move that advances Italy's strategy to bring critical digital infrastructure under state control. The transaction highlights the growing geopolitical and economic importance of undersea cable networks as foundational assets for national security and data sovereignty.
TIM has moved a significant step closer to finalizing the sale of Sparkle to a consortium led by Italy's Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) and Retelit, a company controlled by the Asterion fund. The €700 million (approximately $826 million) deal, agreed upon last year, received the European Union's antitrust clearance after regulators concluded it would not harm competition. The Commission stated that the combined market shares of the involved parties would remain moderate in overlapping markets, with several viable alternative suppliers present. "The Commission concluded that the resulting company would have neither the ability nor the incentive to exclude competing backhaul providers," it said in its assessment.
The approval paves the way for TIM to complete the divestiture within the first half of this year, as previously anticipated. Sparkle operates an extensive global network spanning more than 600,000 kilometers (372,822 miles) of submarine cables, connecting Europe with the Americas and other regions. The acquisition is a key component of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government policy to secure state ownership over strategic national assets, particularly in telecommunications infrastructure.
This sale is part of a broader restructuring for the Italian telecommunications giant. In a much larger transaction, the Italian government approved TIM's €22 billion sale of its fixed-line network to investment firm KKR in January 2025. The divestment of Sparkle to a state-influenced consortium reflects a dual trend of industry consolidation and heightened government interest in controlling the physical pathways of global data traffic, which are vital for economic resilience and digital autonomy.
Source: datacenterdynamics
