Denmark, which over the past week has been rattled by a series of drone sightings over sensitive sites, will over the next two days host dozens of European leaders with defence initiatives such as a possible drone wall and support for Ukraine against Russia topping the agenda.
The 27 EU leaders will first gather on Wednesday in Copenhagen for an informal European Council summit, with a gathering of the European Political Community, attended by over 40 heads of state from across Europe, to follow on Thursday.
Danish authorities are taking no chances and have banned all civilian drone flights this week to “simplify security work”. The decision came after unidentified drones forced the temporary closures of airports last week, with others spotted flying over several military bases.
The timing of the drone sightings in the country they’re gathering in should help sharpen the minds of EU leaders whose talks will primarily focus on how best to defend the eastern flank and how to accelerate the work that started earlier this year to bolster the bloc’s defence before the end of the decade.
Ahead of the gathering, the European Commission has released a so-called Scoping Paper in which it outlined, among other ideas, four flagship projects it believes need to be financed and implemented as a matter of urgency. These include a European drone wall, an Eastern Flank Watch, an Air Defence Shield and a Defence Space Shield.
How to build a ‘sustainable’ Drone Wall?
Talks for a drone wall already started last week when 10 member states from the eastern flank met, with NATO chief Mark Rutte as an observer, following a series of airspace violations in Poland, Estonia and Romania, all blamed on Russia. The sightings in Denmark have not yet been attributed.
But constituting such a wall is a “complex topic”, the French presidential palace said this week ahead of the summit, because it requires a layered approach – with long and short-range air defence systems – not only to detect and track but also to shoot down the threats.
Using fighter jets to neutralise sometimes very cheap drones “is not sustainable in the long term”, so the question for leaders will be “how can we have a system that is effective and financially sustainable and that learns from what we are seeing in Ukraine?,” the Elysée added.
Berlin has similarly dampened expectations such a wall could be rolled out quickly with Defence Minister Boris Pistorius telling the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday that the concept is unlikely to be “realised in the next three to four years”.
He instead urged the bloc “to think and act in priorities and there are others, I think. We need more capabilities and more capacities”.
Points of contention
On the capability front, leaders should also discuss the SAFE loan programme, whose €150 billion envelope has now been attributed, to fine-tune “how to best use the concept of lead nations”, a senior EU official speaking on condition of anonymity said. The loan scheme aims to boost joint procurement, increase interoperability among EU member states and strengthen the European defence industrial base.
To qualify for some of the money, at least two member states have to purchase the same European-made equipment from a list of nine priority areas including drones, anti-drone technology, and ammunition, with one country taking the lead in negotiating the contract.
Two-thirds of the money was requested and earmarked for eastern nations, some of which have already demanded grants to finance defence projects which could put them at odds with other member states.
The senior EU official insisted however that “we are in the phase of implementing the financial instruments that have been agreed, including first and foremost, SAFE”.
Another possible point of contention between leaders to chew over is the Commission’s proposal for its services to take a bigger role in defence, notably by carrying out an annual review of member states’ purchases in order to facilitate coordination and close capability gaps. Larger countries, like Germany, France, and Italy, are likely uncomfortable with the idea, whereas smaller countries, with smaller armies, are probably more favourable.
Leaders will then go home, mull the discussions over with a view to taking decisions on the steps forward at their formal gathering later in the month.
Ukraine’s accession and financing
Ukraine will be the other main topic for leaders to discuss with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy set to dial in to give his usual update on developments on the frontlines.
Here, leaders aim to grapple with two key issues: how to keep on providing financing to the war-torn country so it can continue to defend itself against the Russian aggressor, and how to keep the momentum going on its EU accession process.
“We need to structure the possibility of financing for Ukraine as of next year,” the senior EU official said, given the prospect of peace talks appears slim as Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to refuse to meet Zelenskyy bilaterally.
The use of the nearly €200 billion of Russian money immobilised in the EU since the start of the full-scale invasion “will naturally be on the table”, the official added, stressing however, that “this is a very complex issue with a lot of financial and legal implications”.
Leaders, he said, need to provide political guidance on the way they wish to proceed.
European Council President Antonio Costa will meanwhile open the discussion at 27 on whether to amend accession rules so that the opening of accession clusters be done via qualified majority, rather than unanimity.
Currently, each step of the accession process requires unanimity among member states. Ukraine’s membership bid is being held up by Hungary which has vetoed the opening of the first cluster of negotiations citing energy security, concerns about agriculture, or over the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.
Amending the rule would require unanimity, but the Council chief “doesn’t have the impression that it’s completely impossible”, the senior official said.
A second, larger, summit
Ukraine and the general security situation in Europe should also be front and centre at the EPC summit held on Thursday, which will see EU leaders joined by over a dozen heads of state from across the wider continent.
This includes British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as well as leaders from the Western Balkans and the Caucasus.
Leaders will have roundtables focusing on traditional and hybrid threats, economy, security and migration.
They will also have time to meet in bilateral or multilateral formats to discuss other areas of interest. France and Italy will, for instance, chair a meeting for a European coalition against drug trafficking.
