Warsaw, 12 October 2026
At the inauguration of the new European Security and Strategy programme at the College of Europe in Natolin, EU Commissioner Andrius Kubilius called for a European Defence Union and Security Council. He outlined a new security architecture within NATO, responding to Russia’s military expansion, shifting US priorities and Ukraine’s strategic role.
Ten key takeaways
- Russia’s military expansion threatens European security. Kubilius warns that Russia is preparing for prolonged confrontation, with military spending projected at €180 billion in 2027, a 33% increase. In purchasing power parity terms, he estimates Russian defence expenditure could match the EU’s combined spending of €500–550 billion. He also warns that Russia could eventually deploy 10 million drones annually.
- NATO 3.0 requires Europeans to assume primary responsibility for conventional defence. As the United States increasingly redirects strategic resources towards the Indo-Pacific in response to China’s growing military and economic power, Europeans must take responsibility for their territorial defence. Kubilius expects the US to retain a secondary conventional role and maintain its nuclear umbrella.
- Europe needs a new security architecture within 10–15 years. Kubilius advocates a fundamental transformation from a predominantly transatlantic defence system towards European collective defence. His proposed Europe 3.0 concept would establish defence as a core dimension of European integration alongside the free movement of people and goods.
- A European Defence Union and Security Council could transform decision-making. Kubilius supports Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal for a European Security Council involving partners such as Canada, Norway, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. He envisages a European Defence Union anchored in Article 42(7) TEU, providing a stronger European pillar within NATO that is separable but not separate from the Alliance.
- China and India could fundamentally reshape the global economic order. Kubilius anticipates that China and India could become the world’s two largest economies by the end of the century, potentially pushing the United States into third place and the EU into fourth. He describes this as a historic reversal of the economic balance between East and West, requiring Europe to adapt its geopolitical strategy.
- A stronger EU-US strategic partnership could preserve Western influence. Kubilius argues that neither Europe nor the United States can independently prevent the relative economic rise of China and India. He proposes a new phase of Westernization, bringing Europe and America into a more integrated strategic community capable of maintaining global economic, technological and geopolitical influence.
- Russia’s long-term transformation is essential for lasting European peace. Kubilius considers Russia’s future the most unpredictable among the major geopolitical powers. Continued authoritarian aggression could lead to economic decline, instability or even state collapse. He argues that sustainable European security ultimately requires Russia to become a peaceful, responsible state, while rejecting an unconditional reset with President Vladimir Putin.
- Ukraine’s military victory and EU integration could encourage political change in Russia. Kubilius identifies three European instruments for influencing Russia’s long-term trajectory: supporting Ukraine’s military success, enabling its economic and social development through EU integration, and establishing a future framework for EU-Russia relations. Renewed economic cooperation with Russia should depend on its abandonment of aggressive policies.
- Poland, Germany and Ukraine could become the backbone of European defence. Kubilius proposes a strategic defence pillar centred on Poland, Germany and Ukraine, complemented by the Nordic and Baltic countries. Within NATO 3.0 and Europe 3.0, this regional configuration would form a central component of Europe’s future collective defence architecture, strengthening the continent’s eastern security capabilities.
- European integration must overcome national fragmentation. Kubilius argues that Europe’s ability to address major geopolitical transformations depends on collective ambition rather than competing national priorities. He calls for an intellectual transformation alongside financial, industrial and institutional reforms, urging a new generation of European leaders to develop the ideas needed for a more sovereign, united and strategically capable European Union.
E-summary by ChatGPT, prompted by Insight EU, based on the speech below.
Speech by EU Commissioner Kubilius at the Inauguration of the new European Security and Strategy faculty in College of Europe in Natolin
Warsaw, 12 October 2026
“Check against delivery”
Good afternoon!
It’s pleasure to be here, at the very famous College of Europe in Natolin.
I have heard a lot about Natolin college from those who graduated here. Out of my 6 Cabinet members at least 2 of them are graduates of Natolin.
And I am very glad you have set up this new programme on European Security and Strategy, because I am sure the new study track will be a great success.
Because it all starts with the power of ideas. In European defence we need not only financial or industrial “big bang”, but also intellectual “big bang”.
The ideas you discuss today, could be European policy tomorrow.
And I congratulate College and the whole community to establish this new program: it’s very important for the whole Europe, for the region, for Poland and for it’s neighbors, including Lithuania.
You are looking into the future: defence and security in Europe will be one of the most important topics for the whole XXI century.
You are still young, enthusiastic and optimistic. Which is very good.
And you need to look at what is happening in Europe. Not only today, but also in the much further future.
What will you live through?
Next year the European Union will celebrate its 70th anniversary.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that she will organize a special new Congress of Europe on that occasion in order to produce a vision that can inspire new generation of Europeans and recapture the European imagination.
It will be a good occasion to look not only at what the EU managed to achieve in the last 70 years. But also to look at what the EU will live through during the next 70 years, up to almost the end of this century.
I hope that you will also enjoy this possibility to look into that far away future, which from a historical point of view is quite close.
Especially for your generation.
In 70 years you will be in your nineties, hopefully still healthy, and you will be able to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the European Union.
So let’s ask ourselves: what kind of world will you see around you? What kind of European Union will celebrate that anniversary?
In my view your generation will witness and participate in two major transformations, on the European continent and globally. Transformations of a magnitude that happen only once in a hundred years or once in a millennium.
Let’s start with the turbulences we are witnessing right now on the European continent.
First, Russia is escalating and is still not being deterred.
Next year Russia will allocate 180 billion euro for its military budget, a 33% increase. In PPP terms, Russia next year will spend the same amount or even a little bit more than all the EU Member States are going to spend together (around 500-550 billion euro); Russia is still outproducing us, Russia is rapidly making military technological innovations, like new types of drones.
If day X comes, we will face a battle tested Russian army, able to use 10 million drones per year (that is around 30,000 drones per day), with a war economy and a stronger army than they had in 2022.
Russia is preparing for a long war and confrontation.
Second, because of rising Chinese economic and military power our transatlantic partners are going to shift more and more of their resources from the European continent towards the Indo-Pacific.
And they are asking us, Europeans, to take primary responsibility for conventional European defence.
The Americans will stay in Europe with a secondary responsibility and nuclear umbrella.
This is the so called “NATO 3.0” concept.
A Once-in-a-Century Change: A New Security Architecture for Europe
So, for the next 10 to 15 years, the principal strategic task for Europeans will be to build a new security architecture for Europe. Based on NATO, but also on much more European sovereignty in our own security.
This is the most profound transformation of European security in nearly a century.
Europe faces a deep transition.
The territorial defence of Europe must transform from a transatlantic collective defence of Europe, created back in 1949, towards a much more European collective defence of Europe.
This transformation demands from us to implement the “Europe 3.0” concept: to have a Union not only for the free movement for people and for goods, but also a Union for defence.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was outspoken during her State of the Union Address, on the defence and security of Europe:
“… our doctrine, our institutions and our decision-making have not kept pace with the new reality. Our systems were made for a different world.
They are driven by well-intentioned attempts at consensus and compromise. But we need to consider whether they are still fit for purpose.”
A very clear call for “big bang” reforms in our institutional defence readiness, because we face a crisis of the status quo in today’s defence architecture of the European continent.
And the Commission President offers a bold idea for overcoming this status quo crisis – for achieving a “big bang” in the development of European institutional defence readiness:
“This is why we will set out our ideas to make a European Security Council [with partners like Canada, Norway, Ukraine, the United Kingdom]- a reality. The urgency is clear.”
To “keep pace with the new reality”, clear institutional proposals: A European Defence Union as broader “geographical” foundation for a new European defence architecture. And a European Security Council for effective decision making.
This is how new European defence architecture can be built: as Chancellor Merz spoke during Munich Security Conference – we need to build European pillar of NATO, separable but not separate from NATO, build on the basis of mutual assistance article 42.7 of the Treaty on European Union.
To build such a new European defence architecture it’s a huge immediate task for all of us. And it’s once in a hundred years task – what was created back in 1949 on European continent, will go through profound transformation.
Millennium Shift: China and India Rising
Besides once in the hundred years transformation of European defence architecture in parallel we shall witness once in a millennium global transformation.
We need to recognize that, by the end of this century, China has every possibility of becoming the world’s largest economy. This is what a lot of experts are predicting.
And India will likely follow the same path and will become the world’s second-largest economy, as the world’s largest democracy and most populous nation. That is India’s difference from China.
We have some challenges with China, but we are looking for strongest partnership with India.
It is clear that both China and India will seek to play a much more significant geopolitical role in global affairs. And this is natural consequence of growing economical power.
This is a tectonic reversal of what occurred almost six hundred years ago, when following Columbus’s voyages, Europeans became a global power and developed rapidly growing economies.
And the West eventually overtook the East economically and geopolitically, even though China and India, before the Age of Discovery were economically much stronger than medieval Europe.
Those global transformations will bring a lot of disturbances, some of them we see even now, others we can and we need to predict.
The Next 70 Years: The Future of Geopolitical Players
These developments are difficult, if not impossible, to predict. However, it is possible to assess the future of the major geopolitical players by assuming that no major global catastrophe will occur and that current long-term trends will continue.
The EU’s geopolitical position in the next 70 years will depend heavily on the future trajectories of the other major geopolitical players:
China, India, the United States, and Russia.
When we are looking into the internal perspectives of EU itself, we can expect that the next 70 years of the European Union will be defined by the same internal trends that have characterized its first 70 years: a gradual and natural evolution toward greater unity and consolidation.
If China and India return to global economic leadership, the United States will be pushed from first to third place in the global rankings.
For Americans, this may prove psychologically challenging. They will need to adapt to the reality that the Pax Americana has come to an end.
The rise of China and India is unlikely to have the same psychological impact on the European Union.
The European Union is today the world’s second largest economic power after the United States.
Ending the century in fourth place rather than second is probably be less traumatic for Europe.
The European Union will likely be much more directly influenced by developments in our immediate neighborhood – particularly Russia.
Among the five major geopolitical actors, Russia’s future is the only one that’s almost impossible to predict.
If Russia continues Vladimir Putin’s aggressive policies, or similar policies under new leaders, and because of that remains isolated from the world’s major economies and markets, it is likely to experience a prolonged domestic decline.
Such a trajectory could result in increasing internal instability, more aggressive domestic and foreign policies, and even the collapse of the state order.
At the same time, before the end of the century there is also the possibility for Russia to transform itself back to normality.
Historically, such transformations in Russia often followed major national disasters, including military defeat.
China, India, the United States, and the European Union: Is the “Westernization” of the West Possible?
When looking at the long-term future, we first need to distinguish between developments that depend on our own decisions and those that do not.
Where change does not depend on us, our task is not to resist history but to adapt intelligently to it.
Today we can counter China’s unfair economic practices through effective anti-coercion measures.
And we must defend the global order against any aggressive Chinese attempts to seek not only global economic leadership but also geopolitical dominance.
But Europe will not be able to prevent China and India from becoming the world’s two largest national economies.
Even the United States alone may find it difficult to alter the economical trajectory of China. And of India.
Nostalgia for past national greatness will not stop the United States dropping from number one to number three in global rankings.
But what then should Europe’s response be to these long-term geopolitical developments?
A greater European influence on the global economic and geopolitical leadership would be possible only if Europe and the United States increasingly acted as one, closely connected and an interrelated strategic community.
Combined, our common population, economic strength and technological capabilities will help the EU and US retain global leadership even at the end of this century.
Is such a development possible?
The dominant trend in the West today appears to be increasing nationalization of everything.
But it is possible that this will eventually give way to a new phase of Westernization – a growing recognition that only a united West can successfully compete with the rising powers of the East.
Europe should consistently support such a process.
On the Normalization of Russia: A Responsibility of the European Union
Europe can play only a limited role in moderating the rise of China and India, and only if Westernization will happen.
But Europe can play a decisive role in mitigating the challenge of Russia’s unknown future.
Europe can have a real positive impact on Russia’s eventual transformation back into a normal state – a country that is no longer aggressive toward either its own citizens or its neighbors.
This scenario is the only sustainable foundation for lasting peace on the European continent.
But it is unlikely while Vladimir Putin remains in power. That is today’s reality.
All other scenarios for Russia will be dangerous and will bring even greater security threats to Europe: for example, an unconditional “Reset 2.0” with Putin; Or Russia that continues along its current path while becoming an economic and social black hole; Or the collapse of Russian statehood.
Each of these scenarios would create a more aggressive Russia, which will become more desperate and wild.
It would be a serious mistake to remain indifferent to Russia’s future or to assume that the European Union has no influence over Russia’s long-term transformation.
Yes, the European Union cannot and should not attempt to engineer political change inside Russia.
However, it is in Europe’s vital strategic interest to encourage developments that would eventually lead Russia back toward a non-aggressive and responsible normality.
The European Union has three important instruments that could inspire both Russian society and future Russian leaders to pursue such a transformation.
The first is continued European support for Ukraine’s military success.
Russians must understand that imperial nostalgia leads not to national greatness but only to millions of personal tragedies, for Russians, not only for Ukrainians.
The second is sustained European support for Ukraine’s economic and social success through its integration into the European Union.
Like the successful integration of Poland, Central Europe and the Baltic states after the Cold War.
Such integration of Ukraine can start with military integration, which is in the vital interest of Europe.
Success of a prosperous, democratic and European Ukraine could eventually inspire Russians to seek a similar path for their own country, and to reestablished normal relations with Europe.
The third instrument is a clear long-term European strategy defining future EU-Russia relations once Russia has returned to normality.
Europe should make it clear: Renewed access to European markets, trade, and economic cooperation will only be possible after Russia becomes a normal country, a peaceful and responsible state.
We need to understand, – the European Union can help to create the conditions for Russia’s eventual transformation back to normality.
That would fulfill one of its greatest strategic responsibilities toward future generations by contributing to lasting peace on the European continent.
The alternative is a permanently aggressive Russia, a permanent threat of Russia to the security of Europe.
The Power of Ambition: European Strength and Independence in Defence
Mitigating the rise of Chinese and Indian economic and geopolitical leadership, or helping to facilitate Russia’s return to normality, are tasks of historic significance.
To respond effectively, the European Union must become powerful and independent. Above all, in the fields of defence and security.
While remaining a strong European pillar within NATO, the European Union must be prepared to assume primary responsibility for the conventional collective defence of Europe.
After more than eighty years of a predominantly transatlantic defence system of Europe, Europe now needs to build a truly European system of collective defence.
In such European system of collective defence Poland will play very important role. On this side of Europe the future of security is the defence pillar of Poland-Germany-Ukraine, with Nordic and Baltic countries integrated around. Inside of NATO 3.0. And making the backbone of Europe 3.0 defence architecture.
European Ambition: More Than the Sum of National Ambitions
This is an ambitious, urgent, and historic task for Europeans.
Once in a century, European leadership is called upon to respond to challenges of this magnitude. No one else can accomplish this task on Europe’s behalf.
Europeans must genuinely Europeanize their way of thinking. They need to recognize that a European approach – not national fragmentation – is what will enable Europe to become strong and up to the tasks.
Tasks of once in a hundred years, once in a millennium.
It is now time for national governments to overcome the temptation of excessive “nationalization.”
Giving priority to” national” should not mean indifference of national leaders to the “European”. National interests themselves will suffer if Europe as a whole is weakened.
What Are We Living Through?
In closing: We are living through a century of profound turbulence.
We are witnessing the crisis of the status quo.
Jean Monnet once observed that the European community would be built through crises and would become the sum of the solutions adopted in response to those crises.
The current crisis of the status quo should lead to the same result.
We should not fear this organic evolution of the European Union.
On the contrary, we should welcome the opportunity to live through this time in which Europe matures and assumes primary responsibility for its own future.
And this will be especially the task for you, for your generation.
For you as students here at Natolin. And for you as the future leaders of Europe.
Because it all starts with the power of ideas.
Source – EU Commission