Belgium–Japan defence cooperation: military attachés, rare earths and drone UTM

The Euro-Atlantic area and the Indo-Pacific are growing ever closer in security-policy terms – and Austria is not the only EU country that will therefore station a military attaché in Tokyo for the first time. Belgium and Japan are also expanding their defence cooperation.

In Tokyo, Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken met his Japanese counterpart Shinjiro Koizumi for bilateral talks on 31 August. Never before had a Belgian defence minister made an official visit to Japan.

Francken had already announced before his departure that Belgium would send a military attaché to Japan for the first time, in an interview with the Japanese broadcaster NHK. In return, a Japanese military attaché will in future also serve at the Japanese embassy in Belgium.

Exercises, situational awareness and the defence industry

The aim of the meeting was to deepen defence cooperation with Japan. Joint military exercises are planned, as is better information exchange with the Japanese Ministry of Defense, which is intended to make it easier to build a picture of the situation in the Indo-Pacific region.

Francken is also minister for foreign trade. In the interview he additionally expressed the wish to cooperate with Japan’s growing defence industry. Since the Japanese government lifted the export restrictions on defence equipment, including lethal weapons, in April, more companies have been working on dual-use products and investing more heavily in relevant technologies and innovations.

Raw materials from the seabed

China has tightened export restrictions on rare earths and other raw materials – towards Japan, but also towards companies from European countries. For Francken, diversifying sources of supply has therefore become extremely important. He pointed out that major deep-sea mining companies are based in Belgium and announced that he would raise, among other things, opportunities for cooperation in this sector during his visit. Earlier this year Japan discovered mud containing raw materials on the seabed and plans to attempt mining rare earths from the seabed in 2027.

Belgium and Japan in drone traffic management

The closer defence cooperation between the two countries had already become visible in July: the Belgian Ministry of Defence commissioned Unifly at the time to introduce a UTM (Unmanned Traffic Management) platform. Unifly is a subsidiary of the Japanese drone manufacturer Terra Drone.

Terra Drone develops and supplies drones as well as complete solutions for operating them, drawing on practical operational experience from the war in Ukraine. Unifly is a manufacturer of drone traffic management (UTM) systems based in Belgium; Terra Drone acquired 51 per cent of its shares in 2023.

According to Terra Drone, the contract is worth around 1.15 million euros. It provides for an integrated UTM platform through which drone operations of the Belgian land, naval and air forces are to be centrally controlled and monitored. Unifly will support the Ministry of Defence in introducing the system and setting up the operating infrastructure. Until now, the service branches each coordinated their drone flights separately; in future, this data will be brought together centrally using digital technologies. This is intended to improve safety and efficiency.

As a dual-use platform, Unifly’s UTM system can be used both for military drones and in the civil sector. The plan is to connect the new UTM system for defence with the existing civil system.

This interconnection allows civil and military usage data to be exchanged in real time. Suspicious drones can thus be identified more quickly; together with systems for countering unmanned aircraft, a faster response, up to and including timely neutralisation, is also possible.

Belgium is home to the NATO headquarters and key EU institutions – for Terra Drone, the contract from there is the first project of its kind in Europe. Because defence spending in Europe is rising and more and more drones require UTM platforms, the company sees a growth market and intends to expand its activities there.