Counter-UAS and drones: European Commission seeks founding members of the EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance

The recent repeated airspace violations in EU member states have made clear how urgently Europe needs its own flexible, agile and state-of-the-art Counter-UAS capability against unmanned aerial vehicles. Drones and counter-drone systems are among the priority areas that the member states have identified and agreed upon.

According to the Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030, these capabilities must be developed as a priority and in a coordinated manner in view of the threat situation, so that the security of the EU is ensured. The European Drone Defence Initiative proposed in the roadmap builds on the efforts to strengthen Europe's capacities in drones and their defeat.

In a capability coalition created specifically for this purpose, the member states are already developing drones and systems to counter them. The European Commission wants to support this work more strongly – for example by facilitating dialogue and cooperation with industry and by expanding cooperation with Ukraine.

Lessons from Ukraine for Counter-UAS in Europe

The stronger European capacity in drones and counter-drone systems is to build on what Ukraine has taught: what matters, accordingly, are innovative ecosystems for drones and counter-drone systems, linking research and development with production, scalable manufacturing capacity and continuous technological development. The European Commission is therefore launching the EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance in close coordination with Ukraine.

The alliance is to be led by industry itself. It is to bring together system manufacturers and innovators, including start-ups and scale-ups, as well as end users from the EU, from EEA and EFTA states and from Ukraine. The initiative is intended to support ongoing European efforts towards a comprehensive capacity in drones and counter-drone systems.

To this end, the European Commission is looking for suitable applicants: legal entities with proven experience and expertise in the defence drone and counter-drone ecosystem of the EU and/or Ukraine that commit to actively contributing to the alliance.