Changes from plenary report to adopted text

Regulatory modernisation and aviation safety

176. Calls for an update of the aviation regulatory framework to ensure aviation safety in the light of the increasing use of drones and anti-drone infrastructure;

Artificial intelligence

Technological advancement and strategic importance

177. Calls on the Commission to recognise the strategic importance of and further promote emerging technologies for the European drone industry, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence; recalls Operation Spiderweb and the technology employed by Ukrainian drones, which enabled these unmanned systems to autonomously identify and engage military targets; encourages the EDF to continue supporting and further developing programmes such as AIR-D-EPE in order to advance the research, testing, and deployment of AI-based solutions for the autonomous operation and navigation of drones;

178. Further recommends the design of scalable control algorithms that test swarm strategies and synthesise environments;

Operational evolution and emerging risks

179. Recognises the speed at which drones are evolving in terms of integrating AI algorithms for real-time decision-making, obstacle avoidance and mission optimisation, enabling greater autonomy, precision and versatility; recognises, too, that once deployed in the battlefield, fully autonomous drones will significantly complicate matters for military and civil emergency planners at all levels, risking a further intensification of UAS threats such as fully autonomous drone swarms, deep-strikes and targeted assassinations;

Governance, ethics and international law

180. Calls on the Member States to ensure that the development and deployment of new warfare systems, including drones with autonomous capabilities, are strictly governed by international law, including international humanitarian law, and a human-in-the-loop principle to ensure meaningful human control over lethal force;

Direct energy weapons

181. Encourages prioritising the development and production of solid-state batteries as a key enabler for next-generation drone and defence technologies;

182. Notes that these batteries offer higher energy density, longer lifespans, and faster charging speeds; underlines that their non-flammable solid electrolytes greatly enhance safety and reduce the risk of fire or explosion, making solid-state batteries vital to strengthening the EU’s technological autonomy and operational resilience;

183. Calls on the Commission, the EDA and the EDF to prioritise R&D in the field of advanced electronic warfare systems and directed-energy weapon technologies aimed at countering potential hybrid threats and drone attacks targeting Member States;

184. Further calls for fostering the development of counter-technologies and protective measures capable of mitigating the effects of such directed-energy weapons;

Additive manufacturing

185. Encourages the Member States to further explore low-cost options, including additive manufacturing, and calls for EDF R&D financing for UAS warhead capacity that aims to create new warheads and new chemical approaches for warheads focused on achieving weapon target match;

Skill building

186. Recognises the role of the EUDIS Business Accelerator in streamlining the development and deployment of drone and C-UAS capabilities across the Member States via rapid prototyping, joint testing, and fast-track certification of new technologies to keep pace with evolving battlefield requirements;

187. Calls for the EUDIS to expand the operation of living labs to at least three Member States, with Ukraine as an associate partner;

188. Calls on the Commission to launch a public education campaign on the responsible use of technologies in defence, civilian protection, and legal accountability mechanisms in order to build legitimacy and ensure political support for drone expansion;

189. Calls for the implementation of student training programmes across Member States, coordinated with NATO and EDA, to support education in the field of flying drones, including technical skills and engineering knowledge, and foster public interest;

190. Encourages the Member States, Ukraine and the Commission to develop and implement actions aimed at enhancing skills in the field of developing and operating drones, including both software and hardware components, and at attracting talent from other deep tech sectors and supporting the creation of agile teams capable of designing, manufacturing and programming relevant software; stresses that this should include science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education initiatives, such as drone building workshops, webinars and hackathons, to train people in the construction and operation of drones; welcomes, in this regard, the initiatives already undertaken by the Commission, such as the EUDIS Hackathons and BraveTechEU, which aim to facilitate the development of innovative defence solutions and foster collaboration among stakeholders;

Best practices and doctrine

Deterrence and defence posture and Article 42.7

191. Calls on the front line Member States to adopt strategic development plans and investment frameworks, and to define strategic programmes and projects aimed at developing and securing comprehensive drone and C-UAS capabilities within their territories, covering the entire capability cycle from research and development, testing and certification to production, deployment and training; underlines that such efforts should be supported, where appropriate, through EU instruments such as the EDF, the European Defence Industry Programme and the EU Rapid Deployment Capacity;

192. Stresses that these measures are essential to ensure an adequate, coordinated and timely response to the evolving hybrid and conventional security challenges faced by Europe, in particular along its eastern and southern flanks;

193. Calls for a tailored, risk-based approach to anti-drone capabilities across the EU that recognises differing operational needs; notes that while the eastern flank requires a mix of active counter-drone and offensive precision strike options to deny and deter ground-based threats in the event of an attempted invasion, other states, including Mediterranean ones, may require different capability priorities; urges the Commission and the Member States to ensure burden-sharing; asks the Commission to evaluate capability packages against regional threat profiles to maximise both effectiveness and delivery speed without undermining overall European interoperability;

194. Calls on the Member States to be ready to activate Article 42(7) TEU where aggressive actions amount to an armed attack, or contribute to preparing for an imminent attack;

195. Urges the EU and its Member States to define operational procedures and mechanisms in the event of a Member State triggering Article 42(7) TEU;

196. Stresses that such activation should trigger a joint EU response mechanism, including coordinated defensive measures, rapid intelligence exchange, mutual assistance, and a unified strategic communication to ensure deterrence, solidarity and public resilience across the EU;

197. Calls on the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs to present concrete plans to operationalise Article 42(7) TEU on mutual assistance, including in the context of responding to drone threats, ensuring solidarity among Member States, especially those whose geographical position leaves them directly exposed to imminent threats and challenges;

198. Supports NATO’s efforts to reinforce Europe’s deterrence and defence posture along its eastern flank, including through the launch of Operation Eastern Sentry and the development of the full spectrum of measures under this operation; encourages deterrence efforts to be done in close cooperation with NATO and partner countries, and calls on the EU to ensure that no EU Member State is excluded from ad hoc EU-NATO defence and security collaborations;

Drone academy

199. Invites the Commission, the EDA and Member States to launch a European defensive drone academy to train engineers, operators and technicians, and decision-makers within command structures; calls for the academy to be able to offer joint degrees, vocational training and operator certification in cooperation with industry and leading technical universities; stresses the need to include mandatory modules on AI, robotics, EW, force protection and cyber-resilience to meet operational standards;

200. Calls for the establishment of dedicated training units within research institutes, technical universities and military academies to coordinate drone-related training programmes among themselves, with universities, and across EU and NATO Member States, ensuring the exchange of best practices and interoperability of curricula that includes a focus on civil protection modules and dual-use applications;

Decentralisation

201. Encourages the establishment of an EU ‘drone and anti-drone innovation mechanism’ under the EDA to ensure continuous co-development between offensive and defensive capabilities; emphasises that such a loop would enhance Europe’s resilience against asymmetric threats while ensuring that ethical, legal and operational standards evolve in parallel with technological innovation;

202. Underlines that reliance solely on large, centralised production facilities increases vulnerability to strategic strikes and supply disruptions; notes that decentralised manufacturing models, such as those developed in Ukraine, have proven to enhance operational resilience in wartime by reducing single points of failure;

203. Encourages the development of national and EU policies supporting a mixed industrial approach, combining the strategic capacity of established defence manufacturers with agile, small-scale production clusters, SME networks, and civilian-military cooperation, enabling rapid local production, modular supply chains, geographically distributed maintenance, and swift field repairs as complements to large-scale industrial programmes;

204. Stresses that EU financial instruments and defence-related funding mechanisms, including the EDF and EDIP, should take such decentralised and hybrid models into account when designing eligibility criteria and project support, ensuring that flexibility, resilience and scalability are rewarded alongside industrial capacity;

205. Recalls the ECA’s conclusion which found that the Commission had not produced a robust needs assessment or quantified infrastructure gaps before launching funding calls; urges, therefore, that future gap analyses under the Connecting Europe Facility explicitly include drone-relevant transport nodes, energy and communication sites, to ensure that dual-use infrastructure is planned on evidence rather than ad hoc criteria;

Align doctrine and aggregate demand

206. Encourages the rapid alignment of doctrine and the aggregation of demand for drones with Ukraine, to streamline the development and integration of drones;

207. Calls for defence cooperation with Ukraine to be substantially stepped up, in particular regarding both drone technology and countermeasures, including through enhanced industrial cooperation between Member States and Ukraine;

208. Emphasises that procurement processes must be accelerated and simplified to ensure timely delivery of capabilities despite extremely short technological cycles in the field of unmanned systems, which require continuous innovation and adaptation;

209. Underlines that cooperation and exchange of experience with Ukraine are essential, but stresses that the alignment of doctrines should take into account the differing operational realities and defence structures of each Member State;

PESCO

210. Calls for the development of an EU-wide drone capability roadmap under the PESCO framework to align national budgets and reduce duplication;

211. Welcomes EU flagship projects such as Eurodrone, INTERACT, sixth-wave PESCO efforts, the EDA’s swarm robotics demonstrators, and the U-space/Single European Sky Air Traffic Research frameworks as essential building blocks of Europe’s drone ecosystem; underlines their role in paving the way for future capabilities and calls on the Member States to scale up joint development, consolidate efforts and match the pace of emerging threats;

212. Notes that cooperative capability development programmes aiming at finding efficient and cost-effective C-UAS solutions have already been launched under the EDF (Joint European system C-UAS and European C-UAS) and the PESCO (C-UAS) frameworks;

213. Calls for the review of these programmes in order to ensure that their objectives and expected outcomes are in line with the new reality of drone warfare, especially those stemming from the lessons learned from the war in Ukraine;

214. Underlines that, in order to achieve the desired outcomes, projects aimed at developing state-of-the-art C-UAS technologies need to receive adequate funding across all phases, from research and development to industrialisation and procurement;

215. Commends the development of common European UAS platforms, such as the Medium Altitude Long Endurance Remotely Piloted Aircraft System Euro-drone, or potential anti-UAS equipment, such as the Airborne Electronic Attack device, as state-of-the-art projects in European defence cooperation under PESCO; encourages the exploration of similar defence projects, such as naval drones, portable anti-drone devices or integrated electronic warfare modules;

216. Deplores the concerning delay in the Eurodrone project;

217. Calls for deeper cooperation between the EDA and the Horizon Europe programme to foster dual-use innovation and programme development;

Stockpiling

218. Calls for the stockpiling of drone components and critical raw materials across the Member States, rather than complete systems, and for the creation of forward-deployed repair-and-regeneration hubs, co-located with NATO depots, to ensure sustained operational readiness and the rapid rotation of upgraded components; urges the Commission to integrate these efforts into an overarching raw materials strategy that secures supply chains by reducing the strategic dependency on China as an important supplier of raw materials and minerals;

219. Underlines that supply chain disruptions for critical components such as motors, batteries and semiconductors have constrained the capacity of European SMEs to contribute effectively to the EU’s defence industrial base; calls for the establishment of a ‘component stockpile access’ mechanism that would enable SMEs certified by the EDA and Member States to draw such components from EU strategic stockpiles at negotiated prices and to repay in kind once production scales up; insists that these stockpiles should also be accessible to Ukraine;

220. Notes that this approach is fully aligned with the objectives of the ReArm Europe Plan and the European Chips Act, reinforcing industrial readiness and resilience across the EU;