Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

Removed22. Recommends the integration of C-UAS into joint training exercises and EU-level civil protection planning with an emphasis on critical infrastructure;

Added196. 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;

Removed23. Calls for the enforcement of EU-wide UAS standardisation, for continued aerial worthiness to be made obligatory, and for Open-Earth-Monitor Cyberinfrastructure and EMAR to be necessary;

Added197. 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;

Removed24. Calls for expanding certified testing grounds for training on and integration of drone capabilities where industry and armed forces can rapidly co-develop, test and iterate drone solutions in operational conditions;

Added198. 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;

AddedDrone academy

Added199. 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;

Added200. 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;

AddedDecentralisation

Added201. 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;

Added202. 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;

Added203. 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;

Added204. 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;

Added205. 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;

AddedAlign doctrine and aggregate demand

Added206. Encourages the rapid alignment of doctrine and the aggregation of demand for drones with Ukraine, to streamline the development and integration of drones;

Added207. 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;

Added208. 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;

Added209. 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;

AddedPESCO

Added210. Calls for the development of an EU-wide drone capability roadmap under the PESCO framework to align national budgets and reduce duplication;

Added211. 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;

Added212. 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;

Added213. 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;

Added214. 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;

Added215. 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;

Added216. Deplores the concerning delay in the Eurodrone project;

Added217. Calls for deeper cooperation between the EDA and the Horizon Europe programme to foster dual-use innovation and programme development;

AddedStockpiling

Added218. 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;

Added219. 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;

Added220. 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;

Added221. Notes that the war in Ukraine has demonstrated the extremely short technological cycles in the field of unmanned systems, requiring continuous innovation and adaptation; 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;

Added222. Calls for the development of modular systems with interchangeable components, in order to keep pace with rapid innovation cycles in mass-produced drones and to adapt to the continuous evolution of air defence requirements in high-intensity contingencies;

Added223. Stresses, however, that maintaining such readiness and stockpiling capacity entails significant costs for industry, and that companies are unlikely to sustain inventories of critical components without clear public guidance and financial support; suggests that national supply security agencies could serve as importers and wholesalers for key components, thereby ensuring adequate stock levels, enabling regular stock rotation, and alleviating the financial burden on individual firms; underlines that this model would require coordinated public-private partnership and dedicated funding mechanisms at both national and EU levels to ensure resilience and supply continuity;

Added224. Calls for a ‘bankability kit’ to enhance defence financing efficiency by publishing standard European Investment Bank/EDF loan pack templates, including milestone schedules, warranty provisions and intellectual property clauses, to reduce legal friction with Member State banks involved in distributing defence-related credit lines;

Added225. Calls on the Commission to include, within the framework of its Sustainable Investment Facilitation Agreements, measures to ensure that the European drone industry and the Member States secure sufficient reserves of key materials and components essential for UAS development;

Added226. Urges the Commission to integrate these efforts into an overarching raw materials strategy that secures supply chains by reducing strategic dependency on China and recommends that Member States safeguard the security of supply for drones by identifying critical components and competencies that must be locally sourced;

AddedDedicated EDA Budget

Added227. Calls on the European Council to mandate the EDA to establish a dedicated, flexible budget for UAS that spans the full capability life cycle, including R&D, prototyping, training, fielding and maintenance, with flexible requirements and appropriations to accelerate acquisition and fielding;

Added228. Considers that Structure for European Armament Programmes (SEAPs) could be a useful tool for the development of UAS as it spans the full capability life cycle, accelerating the acquisition or production of relevant capabilities and their availability;

Added229. Calls on the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security and the Member States, in consultation with NATO, to establish dedicated EU funding lines for the rapid procurement, training, sustainment and spare-parts provisioning of combat UAS units;

AddedFront line states detection systems

Added230. Considers that the numerous incursions by Russian drones into the airspace of many Member States show that the EU is no longer merely under threat but is being provoked;

Added231. Believes that the overflight of sovereign airspace by fighter jets or military drones is not a hybrid act, but a deliberate violation of sovereignty;

Added232. Calls on the EU and the Member States to develop the capacity to deter, swiftly detect, attribute, intercept and be ready to neutralise such attacks;

Added233. Recommends that the Member States, particularly front line states, significantly upgrade or adopt new missile and drone launch detection systems that can transmit information across the EU to serve as a ‘shield’ for Europe’s multilayered aerial defence capabilities;

Added234. Calls for full integration with NATO’s air and space defence structures to maximise interoperability;

Added235. Calls for the EU Sky Shield Initiative to integrate C-UAS capabilities within the broader architecture of the European IAMD system framework, and supports the EU-wide early warning and data-sharing network that integrates detection telemetry and launch indications with EU and national air-defence command systems;

Added236. Recalls that only with a comprehensive 360-degree approach can the EU effectively protect its borders;

Added237. Calls for targeted EU co-financing of counter-drone defences to protect critical energy and transport infrastructure in front line Member States;

Added238. Recommends that Member States implement baseline, layered C-UAS protection for critical infrastructure such as energy systems, transport nodes, telecommunications networks and space ground segments based on interoperable interfaces and common technical specifications, with harmonised incident reporting and clear civil-military coordination, underpinned by legally authorised and safely deconflicted EW training and testing;

AddedCo-financing regular trainings

Added239. Recommends the co-financing of regular training and technical expertise development across service academies and military colleges via the EDA with coordination from the European Security and Defence College, which sponsors technical capability-building blocks via joint training that prioritise key areas such as human swarm interfaces, swarm intelligence algorithms, edge computing, secure datalinks, multi-viable programmes/platforms, simulation of experimentation platforms for AI tactical development, and simulations that optimise threat sequencing and weapon efficiency, ensuring that such activities will be aligned with NATO training standards and contribute to common European capability-building and interoperability objectives, including the incorporation of AI, robotics and aerospace technologies, in order to enhance competitiveness;

AddedJoint C-UAS trainings in civil protection planning

Added240. Recommends the integration of C-UASs into joint training exercises and EU-level civil protection planning, with an emphasis on critical infrastructure that enables police, airport authorities and energy sector operators to access EU-wide training and standardised C-UAS capabilities;

Added241. Encourages strengthening industry-in-the-loop experimentation and iterative field trials to rapidly validate new counter-drone technologies and operational concepts;

Added242. Encourages the Member States to prioritise integrating command and control systems with first responders, civil defence and UAS defence doctrine to ensure that civil preparedness, sheltering, early warning, and technological integration are optimised to the fullest extent possible;

Added243. Considers that the implementation of the directive on the resilience of critical entities should take into account threats posed by the illegal use of drones, and calls on the Commission to establish a regulatory framework authorising state security bodies, including police, border guards and other interior forces, to procure and operate C-UAS systems; stresses that such authorisation should be subject to stringent oversight and accountability provisions comparable to those applied to lethal weapons, ensuring the effective protection of civilian infrastructure while upholding EU safety and security standards;