Brussels, 23 June 2026
EU Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius warned that Europe must urgently replace critical U.S. strategic enablers, integrate Ukraine’s battlefield-tested defence industry, and move from fragmented national defence markets to a more integrated European defence market. Speaking in Brussels, he said Europe has found the money and made the laws for defence — but now needs a functioning market to outproduce, out-innovate and deter Russia.
Commissioner Kubilius framed Europe’s defence challenge around three strategic pressures: Ukraine’s continued battlefield adaptation, Russia’s expanding military production and provocations, and a changing U.S. posture under what he described as “NATO 3.0”. He argued that European allies must prepare to take primary responsibility for the conventional defence of the continent as Washington reviews its force posture and basing in Europe.
Kubilius said Ukraine is no longer only a recipient of European support, but also a provider of operational knowledge and defence innovation. He highlighted Ukraine’s drone warfare, long-range strike capabilities and defence-industrial innovation as central lessons for Europe. In his view, Ukraine’s military and defence industry should be integrated into the European Defence Industry, the European Defence Market and a future European Defence Union.
A second message concerned production scale. Kubilius argued that European defence industry must move beyond slow, expensive, highly customised “haute couture” production towards scalable, “good enough” wartime production. He called on Member States to place large, joint and European orders, including long-term contracts for “ever warm” facilities, to give industry visibility and reduce risk.
The third and most institutional part of the speech focused on Europe’s fragmented defence market. Kubilius said the current structure of 27 national defence markets, separate standards, certification systems, transfer licences and procurement practices creates unnecessary costs, delays and barriers for start-ups and SMEs. He argued that direct awards under Article 346 TFEU have become too dominant, limiting competition and innovation.
Kubilius linked an integrated European defence market to strategic autonomy, industrial competitiveness and deterrence. He said Europe needs the scale of the Single Market in defence just as it does in other sectors, and compared the EU’s fragmentation with the U.S. single defence market. The Commission is expected to present a communication on a more integrated European defence market next week, followed later this year by proposals to change defence procurement and other market rules.
E-Summary by ChatGPT, prompted by Insight EU, based on the speech below
Speech by EU Commissioner Kubilius at the European Defence and Security Summit
Brussels, 23 June 2026
“Check against delivery”
Good morning.
We met last year at this same conference.
Since then Ukraine is prevailing. Prevailing on the battlefield, in the air and at sea. Ukrainian drones have brought the Russian advance to a standstill on land. Ukrainian drones command the air, disrupting Russian logistics behind the front lines.
Drone Commander Robert Brovdi says, that up to 300 kilometres behind the front lines, it’s “unlikely” Russian military vehicles will reach their destinations.
And new, long range Ukrainian drones are striking deep behind enemy lines. Just yesterday a satellite ground control centre north of Moscow. Crimea – without gasoline. Long lines for gasoline in Moscow.
Ukraine is no longer a receiver of support but also a giver of support. Supporting Gulf countries to defend against the drone danger from Iran. Included into development of pan-European EDPCI projects: for drone and air defence, long range missiles production, etc.
Putin is responding to Ukrainian successes with increasingly desperate attacks, like the attack on the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery last week, founded 1000 years ago. In Kyiv, the birthplace of Orthodoxy. A UNESCO World Heritage site.
An attack on culture, on religion and civilisation. A brutal attack but not a surprising attack. Putin has no respect for history or humanity or Christianity.
Provocations are increasing also against the Baltics and Eastern Flank. Last week – in Poland the murder of Semyon Skrepetsky, a Russian dissident. Murdered, it appears because of his paintings about Putin.
Unfortunately, there can be more such attacks. Worse such attacks. Not only in Ukraine, but also in Europe.
That Ukraine is prevailing does not mean the war is over. It does not mean Russia is weak. Russia is still outproducing us. And is able to use millions of drones.
Putin is still a danger, to European security. Putin is still willing and able to test Article 5.
The questions is: are we willing and able to defend ourselves and deter aggression?
Our American allies are asking the same question. They are calling on us, Europeans to take more responsibilities for our defence.
This is not new. But now things are getting real. Getting urgent.
In his speech last week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called for a NATO 3.0, built on the NATO 1.0 type obligations of Member States, that won the Cold War, followed by the Post Cold War NATO 2.0, when Europeans decided that we can enjoy “peace dividend”, since the Americans alone will defend Europe.
It’s obvious – we need NATO 3.0. Secretary Hegseth asked for Europeans to be “in the lead” on conventional defence of the continent. This is NATO 3.0.
In his speech, Secretary Hegseth announced a “six-month Department of War review” to “examine America’s force posture and basing in Europe.” And the goal of this review: “to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe leading, stepping up to take primary responsibility for the defense of Europe”. But also to make sure that America’s forces “are postured for America’s global needs”.
And what this means is that America will move capabilities, especially “material” capabilities to other parts of the world. And we have to be prepared. This could not be at some distant time in the future. It could be soon.
We are now faced with an urgent challenge to replace American strategic enablers and heavy weaponry.
We need to remember, that Europe very heavily depends now on the Americans for strategic enablers like air to air refuelling, space based intelligence.
Without such capabilities we will be weaker in our defence, weaker in our deterrence. If we don’t fill these capabilities, that could be an open invitation for Putin to test us.
We need to pay the price for peace, to avoid the cost of war. Filling strategic gaps will cost hundreds of billions.
The Kiel Institute in their Sparta 2.0 paper estimates 500 billion euro. Much more than the 131 billion euro, the Commission proposes for Defence and Space in the next multi-annual EU budget.
This kind of money can only be found on a national level, where Member States will spend around 7 trillion euro during next 10 years, according to their pledges given to NATO.
But for to be successful, it needs to be spent together, and European.
We have done a lot in the last year. SAFE loans – 150 billion euros, Ukraine Support Loan – 60 billion euros. Member States pledges – 6.8 trillion for our defence.
And many proposals and initiatives on defence. To cut red tape for industry, improve military mobility and proposals to build pan-European projects – European defence projects of Common Interest.
If we hadn’t done all that, we would now be in a catastrophic situation.
We have a strong foundation for action. But foundations alone are not enough for defence and deterrence. We now need to double down.
The next couple of years can be especially challenging, dangerous and unpredictable.
We learned how to raise additional funds. We still need to learn how to spend them in an effective way in order to outproduce, out innovate, outgun Russia.
So you ask, what is our strategy?
There are three things we now need to do and are doing: a) support Ukraine and integrate with Ukraine; b) from slow and low “haute couture” production to massive “good enough” production; c) integrated, effective European defence market;
To start with, the first goal – we must continue to support Ukraine, so Ukraine can continue to prevail. And we must integrate European and Ukrainian military and industrial capabilities.
This we are doing with the Ukraine support loan. By giving Ukraine access to the European Defence Fund. With the Drone Alliance we are setting up with Ukraine. And BraveTech EU: Ukrainian and European companies finding solutions to battlefield challenges.
But we need to do much more, go much further.
American Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently said: “The Ukrainian military forces are the strongest and most powerful in Europe.”
And President of Finland Alexander Stubb said: “there is no army in Europe or the United States, by the way, capable of conducting a modern war the way Ukraine is doing”.
But why do they consider the Ukrainian army the best? My answer: not only because they have brave soldiers and smart commanders, but also because their defence industry is the best and most innovative.
And why is the Ukrainian defence industry the most innovative? I got the answer last year, when I had informal discussions with prominent Ukrainian leaders of politics and industry, who created the “drone army” in 2023.
They made a clear comment: “If we would have listened to the Ukrainian generals from the very beginning of the full scale invasion, we would not have been able to create the drone army”.
At the very beginning of the war, there was no military demand for drones and for innovative defence. Only after some time, in Ukraine, innovative defence supply managed to transform military demand.
Thanks to innovative supply – Ukraine changed its war doctrine. Thanks to transformation of its war doctrine, Ukraine is prevailing.
It would be difficult to understand if we in Europe would not take it as our vital interest to integrate the best European, or even global, military force of Ukraine into our European defence architecture.
It would be difficult to understand if we did not integrate the most innovative defence industry in the world into our European defence technology industrial base.
We must integrate Ukraine – into our European Defence Industry, into our European Defence Market, and into a future European Defence Union.
Second part of our strategy: we must ramp up production.
The money is there. Member States must now start placing big orders, big joint orders, big European orders. Including contracts for “ever warm” facilities. That will bring long term visibility for industry. To reduce risk for industry.
And industry needs to ramp up production capacity. To keep prices down and meet production deadlines.
We can learn from Ukraine’s massive defence production big bang: from 1 billion in 2022 to 50 billion in 2026.
And we must learn from Ukraine how to make “good enough” defence products.
European defence industry produces “haute couture” defence products. Products that are technologically advanced, but difficult to make, expensive and hard to scale up. Products that are made in peacetime for peacetime conditions.
Ukrainian industry produces weapons for wartime conditions, to perform on the battlefield. ‘Good enough’ weapons that get the job done.
Weapons that shoot down drones, stop the enemy advance. Weapons that need rapid production, rapid innovation, rapid repairs.
Third part of our strategy: we cannot transform our Defence production without transforming our EU Defence Market.
Member States are responsible for defence. That’s a historical, political and legal reality. Member States need to protect their security interest.
But as a result, in the European Union we have 27 defence markets, 27 sets of rules. And so defence industry still has many obstacles. Obstacles that we have removed for other sectors of the economy, in many years of European integration, and which have brought massive prosperity.
For example: for defence Member States have different national standards and certifications. 27 different rules. So: more national assessments, more testing, more audits, more paperwork, more expenses. Especially a burden for start-ups and SMEs.
Another example: transfer licenses for products and components, which create obstacles to production, when components are produced in different Member States, and need to be moved between Member States for final assembly. So: products stuck at borders – losing time, losing money, disrupting supply chains.
The fact that we have no properly integrated defence market is also an obstacle to defence innovation. Fragmentation limits possibilities for innovative newcomers to enter the market. Up to 80% of what Primes produce is procured by their national governments and national militaries. It means – just a few companies are almost monopolizing the whole market.
Up to 80% in defence is procured using the TFEU Article 346 exemption, through direct awards. Without a public competitive tender.
Direct awards can be necessary for security. But they have become the default. And this is out of balance.
Our primes are important for our defence. But so are our start ups and SMEs. They need space and opportunities too!
And without an integrated market they have no space and opportunities. Because the established status quo on the supply and demand side in the fragmented European markets dominates everything. And that is why transformation of demand and transformation of defence doctrines in Europe is so slow.
No market – no transformation!
We need a more integrated European defence market for three reasons.
First: for our European strategic autonomy. As the Letta and Draghi reports show: for European competitiveness we need a defence market on a European scale.
More global competitiveness of our defence industry also means our governments and militaries will buy more European production, instead of production from other countries.
Second, we need a more integrated European defence market, to mobilise the talent of Europe’s start ups and SMEs.
So they can easily enter the market, grow and innovate, and in the end can transform the war doctrines of our countries. Like it happened in Ukraine.
Third, we need a more integrated European defence market for our power to defend and deter. For strong supply lines between Member States.
So we can mobilise the massive power of the European economy and the power of an integrated defence market for our defence.
We must ask ourselves: Has America got one single defence market, or 50? Would America be stronger or weaker if it had 50 separate defence markets on the states level, instead of one?
So what are we waiting for?
Defence is a national prerogative. But it’s clear that more integrated European defence market will make national industry and national defence stronger.
While doing nothing will leave us fragmented and divided and weaker – European and national.
At a time when we need to be strong as Europe. A time when Russia is escalating its production and its provocations. A time when America is asking us to step up, because in some areas, they might step aside.
Now is the time to create a more integrated European Defence market.
Last week, the European Council stressed the importance of the European Defence Market. Its functioning and integration.
Next week, the Commission will present a communication on a more integrated European defence market, with detailed analysis and follow up steps.
Later this year we will present a proposal to change defence procurement rules. And other market rules.
We can do it.
We have found the money for our defence. We have made the laws for our defence.
Now we must create a market for our defence.
It’s urgent and important we do this. And do this soon.
Source – EU Commission