SES Expands Talks with EU to Supplement Starlink

SES expanded talks with the European Union and various governments over plans to complement services offered by Starlink. The EU first approached operators, including SES and Eutelsat, in March following rising tensions with the US, and the former’s CEO, Adel Al-Saleh, said these initial discussions have moved beyond short-term plans to mid- and long-term cooperation models.

“And what we’re seeing is all of the European governments are serious about increasing their defense spending,” he explained. “There are alternatives, not to completely replace Starlink, that’s not possible, but to augment and complement Starlink.”

Last month, concerns in particular were raised over a deal between Starlink and Ukraine, which is intended to provide the country with satellite services from the Elon Musk company. The EU was racing to find an alternative to Starlink, due to questions marks about European-US- US relations and Musk’s ties to President Donald Trump.

The EU’s search for alternatives comes as competition in the low Earth orbit satellite space intensifies, with players including Starlink, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, and China’s SpaceSail rolling out large-scale constellations. However, Al-Saleh said that global network resilience goes beyond the need for strengthening domestic satellite capabilities, highlighting the pitfalls of relying on any single player. “It is not right to say they just want to avoid Starlink or the Chinese. They want to avoid being dependent on one or two providers. They want to have flexibility.”

SES operates a fleet of around 70 satellites across multiple orbits, with more than 20 in medium Earth orbit (MEO), and plans to scale the number to 100. Its MEO satellites are positioned roughly 8,000km above Earth, offering faster data transfer than traditional systems and supporting both government and consumer connectivity.