European Commissioner Andrius KUBILIUS at the "State of Europe - Europe at a Crossroads: Purpose, Power and Resolve" Friends of Europe Conference
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European Commission
Follow its sittingsJamie SHEA
But it's great also to have a NATO voice and a transatlantic dimension to the debate. We have already introduced in the first panel this morning Josef Aschbacher, the Director General of course of the ESA, the European Space Agency. And I mentioned Deputy Prime Minister Chentsov who should be hopefully there on the screen. He is. Deputy Prime Minister, thank you.
Hopefully you can see and hear us and welcome. So, Commissioner, we start with you. I'm asking everybody to keep to five minutes for introductory remarks. What I'd be tempted to ask you is when you heard about this sort of NATO 3.0 concept, from a European perspective and from your vantage point, what did it mean for you and what does it mean in terms of where Europe should continue to invest in NATO while building up of course separate structures, or at least complementary structures, in the European Union?
Andrius Kubilius
Well, first of all, thanks a lot and it's a great pleasure to be under your guidance of our conversation. When I hear about NATO 3.0, for me the first question is what was 1.0 and 2.0? I'm smiling, but to be more serious, because definitely we have challenges and issues of today, but we should not forget to see how things can develop till the end of the decade. Not everything we can predict, but we can understand how things are going globally. And that's why I praise what our American friends are doing.
Because in my view, what we need to understand now really, that NATO whatever, 3.0 or 4.0, or whatever we shall call it...
Jamie SHEA
Once I take the microphone. Once I take it. No, you have a voice that carries, but I think for the recording we need that. Thank you, excuse me.
Andrius Kubilius
Okay, sorry. So, because it's very clear why we need NATO, because we have very clear threats on our eastern border, Russia and Belarus. The question is, do we agree that those threats will stay forever, or we can look into longer term and to have some strategy how to diminish those threats? This formula, Europe, George Bush senior formula, Europe in peace, whole and free, that is what we need to look, but I will not elaborate on that. Simply what I want to say, that when we are looking into developments of today, we need to see this longer term developments, including, I am having here for example Goldman Sachs statistics and predictions.
In 2075, predictions are very clear: economically China is number one, India number two, United States number three. There is no numbers about European Union, but we can imagine that we are somewhere even lower. So it means that the global changes are big ones. And that is what our transatlantic partners are reacting with the concept of NATO 3.0. They need to shift their resources to Indo-Pacific because of Chinese growing power, and that is why they are asking us to develop our capabilities and to be ready to take primary responsibility on European continent, and they will stay with secondary responsibility.
What does it mean secondary, it's a big question mark. They will keep nuclear, but what else, it's not very clear. But that means also from another side that we need to be ready to take that responsibility. It's not, well, today still maybe somebody thinks that well, Americans always are speaking that they will shift, but they are staying. But let's not be in some way here, how to say, naive, and let's ask ourselves a very simple question: where US and we will be in ten years' time, or back in 2040?
And my understanding is that we shall really see much less of Americans here on European continent, not because they do not love us anymore, but because they need to shift to Indo-Pacific. So that's why our agenda, our clear goal is very clear: we need to do utmost in order to be ready. Now what does it mean to be ready? It means both from material point of view and from institutional point of view.
Yes, inside of NATO, but how we are going to organize ourselves? And that is what Commission President started to speak about. And she said two things. It's not only about the European Security Council, which I was myself was discussing earlier, you know, a lot. Yeah.
But she said, well, we need to understand that our doctrines, including, you know, foreign policy and defense, our doctrines, our institutions, and our decision-making, which were created during peacetime, are not fit anymore for today's situation. And that is why we need to seriously look into this institutional part, European Defense Union, European Security Council. We can elaborate a lot how it should be the best way how to how to do that. But, you know, really, in order to be ready for this primary responsibility, we should not look only into material development, what we need to produce, what we need to procure, and so on. It's not enough.
Very important is also this, you know, institutional one, institutional side, with two major goals. One goal is really to have geographical basis. How we are bringing everybody who is on European continent, including Canada, who is almost on European continent, you know, all together, especially with Ukrainian defense, you know, experience, coming together for some kind of this European Defense Union in order to have much stronger capabilities. Second, how we are building really effective capability to, you know, make decisions and especially to have proper answers, you know, big answers to big questions. And that is why I am I was proposing this Security Council, a little bit more, you know, similar to what we call E5 plus, maybe with participation also of smaller countries on rotational basis, working with the whole European Defense Union members, you know, and so on and so on.
That's possible to do. But we need to be geographically strong and we need to be strong in our decision-making.
Jamie SHEA
Thank you very much, Commissioner. We'll come back to much of what you say in just a moment. But now we move to Assistant Secretary General Jaakkola from a NATO perspective. Commissioner, you said that defense procurement is not everything. You're absolutely right.
We need many other things as well for a European Defense Union. But on the other hand, capabilities are key when it comes to defense. I know at NATO there's been a big push to develop the transatlantic defense industrial base, to encourage industry to produce more and faster. And so, Assistant Secretary General, from your perspective, responsible for the policy at NATO, where are you today in terms of developing the kind of industrial base that the alliance requires? Where would you like to be in five years' time?
And are you optimistic you're going to get there in five years' time on current trends? What can NATO do? What does industry need to do to make the partnership more effective? And as I say, translate all of those hundred-euro notes into capabilities delivered on budget and on time. Yep, and I mustn't forget to give you the microphone.
Tarja JAAKKOLA
Thank you so much, and thank you for the very comprehensive question. So, I'm afraid I might not be able to answer all your all your questions in five minutes' time. But to start with the very kind of basic thing, to some extent, it bothers me a bit when we talk about capabilities, we always think about, let's say, the weapon systems, platforms, and that the industry needs to procure. When we think about our warfighters, that's not the only thing. Capability is a larger concept.
We have this lovely acronym, DOTMLPFI, in NATO, which describes actually what do you need to have to have the military capability. You need to have the forces.
You need to have the infrastructure. You need to have the logistics, the maintenance, repair, overhaul capabilities, all that. So of course procurement is critical to build that capabilities, to get the get the weapon systems, get the platforms, get the fighters, but that's not enough. So we need to have a more holistic and more global view on on capabilities. And that is actually what we are doing within NATO by setting the capability targets to our nations.
And the in June last year, the Ministers of Defence approved the very ambitious capability targets for the next next four years, no, ten years to come. For in four-year cycle we always revisit these capability targets. In Hague then, at the summit, the heads of state and government responded to these targets by deciding to allocate the needed funding, 3.5% of GDP on core defence, 1.5 for defence and security related. And these two elements are interlinked. To be able to meet the capability targets, the nations need to spend the 3.5% by by 2035.
And that is something also which keeps forgotten in the in the I would say in the public discussion. So I think these are the fundamental decisions that our political leaders have made then to facilitate actually the ramp-up of the industrial base and the increased industrial capacity. What we are doing in NATO enterprise to support nations, because of course nations are the fundamental ones that need to procure the capabilities, they need to provide the capabilities and forces to secure, should secure need them to defend our alliance. So we have started by supporting nations with different policy initiatives. Already in 2023, we agreed on NATO Defence Production Action Plan, which was updated also very recently.
We have from Washington the NATO Industry Capacity Expansion Pledge, which also brought new elements into the table like nations providing us reports on their industrial capacity, what they have been doing. And that has been that has given us a good kind of an understanding about the alliance industrial base, what it looks like at the moment, where we still have industrial capacity gaps, for example. We have very much worked on innovation because we realized together with the nations at those ambitious capability targets that the ministers approved in June 25, the nations are not able to meet them just by procuring what I call the traditional defence capability. We need to look on innovative solutions actually that can be fielded faster and that are also more cost-effective. So this comes this especially comes to your new tech and and how we are looking at the emerging and disruptive technologies.
There we have several elements that we have launched, lastly in Hague, no sorry, Ankara this year when we launched what we call our innovation scale-up package and for example providing information to industry and innovation ecosystems actually what is our innovation demand and what kind of solutions we see that the innovation ecosystems should be developing. So there are a lot of different type of initiatives. I could go on on a kind of a long time to describe this, but I will leave that for later discussion. But where should we go and what actually I kind of expect and what I foresee that we need? So as an alliance, we need an industrial base which has capacity and resilience to deliver at scale and at pace.
We need an industrial base who is able to turn innovation into capabilities at speed as well. And we need a transatlantic foundation that remains strong. We need of course European allies, and I'm not talking only about the EU member states 23, but the European allies at large and Canada stepping up, but we need to maintain the transatlantic bond as well, especially because our defence industries are very intertwined.
If I talk with the American companies, they say they have huge amount of sub-suppliers from the Europe and vice versa. So when we look at the capacity and resilience to deliver at scale, so we are very much talking about the search capacity. So we need to prepare for tomorrow. We need to prepare for the situation that we need to produce even more and even faster. So now we are looking at ramping up today, but I always say that okay, we need to look beyond the horizon and see what actually is needed if we are in a full-time war and we need to sustain and ensure our production.
So that is one element for what I see that we need to have. We have already now a good industrial base, but we need to have an industrial base also which is able to survive different type of disruptions. We have seen, like we heard also during the previous intervention, some also hybrid kind of interventions towards defense industry. I think the Estonian one was the last one where Estonian intelligence authorities reported that arson was potentially a hybrid attack. So we need also to work on the resilience of our defense industry.
So we need to be able to innovate quickly and we need to be able to adapt quickly and we need to be able to bring the innovation quickly to our warfighters, to our battlefield. We have excellent example how Ukraine is doing that at the moment, and this is something we can learn quite a lot, how they are turning their innovation cycle being even faster, how they cooperate between industry and the end users. So we need to be able to innovate at the speed that is relevant for our warfighters and what our adversaries are developing. So then the my last point was about transatlantic bond, and when we talk about Europe stepping up and Europe taking more responsibility together with Canada, it doesn't mean that we would we have to build or we should build kind of sovereign capabilities without our transatlantic friends and our transatlantic cooperation. That is needed also also in the future, and like I said, there is quite a lot of industry cooperation already ongoing, but it's also important in terms of interoperability.
Because at the end, if we need to fight together, we need to be able to fight together, and then we need interoperable capabilities and that we can use in a seamless manner in the battlefield together. So therefore we cannot completely forget our kind of transatlantic cooperation either. That's instrumental when we are preparing our deterrence and defense and strengthening it. So I think I will stop here.
Jamie SHEA
Thank you very much. Thank you and also describing all of the rich menu that NATO's developed. I'd be tempted, not now of course but perhaps later, to ask you how the cooperation or the dialogue in this area with the European Union is going, given of course that there are it seems to be many sort of complementary sort of activities in terms of engagement with industry and how you sort of deconflict and make those those activities as complementary as possible. But maybe we can come back at that to that and maybe the Commissioner will have a word to say on that later as well. Ukraine has been mentioned, everything that it has to teach us from its own experience, particularly in innovation, how the cooperation is going between Ukrainian industry and European transatlantic industry in terms of joint projects.
Counter-drones of course has been something, AI, robotics that have featured very heavily in the media recently.
Is everything going swimmingly or is there more that needs to be done by both sides to really optimize that relationship? And what are the lessons learned from Ukraine in terms of where Europe needs to steer its efforts in the future? We don't have him in person, but we're very fortunate to have him on the screen this morning, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, a big friend of Friends of Europe, Vsevolod Chentsov. Thank you very much, sir. I hope you've been able to hear the debate so far and at least see us in the room.
Now the floor is yours to give us your perspective on what we've been discussing. Please.
Vsevolod CHENTSOV
Many thanks, Mr. Shea, and good afternoon to everybody, dear Mr. Commissioner, dear Deputy Secretary General, dear friends of Friends of Europe. It's indeed my pleasure and honor to join you online. Unfortunately, I couldn't travel to Brussels. I really wanted to be there today, joining your discussion. But you know, we are busy, quite busy here in Kyiv for quite a few reasons.
Unfortunately, Russia is escalating its war of terror against Ukrainian population. In Kyiv, we have now almost every hour, sometimes every 30 minutes, air attack. The Russians are using jet drones. And it's many of you, I'm sure, knows about Shahed drones. But what it is?
It's Iranian design, propelled by Chinese powerful jet engines. So this is a Russian weapon they use to terrorize Ukrainian cities. And it's quite something to think about, how Russia organize its own military campaign. So Russia is not alone. So this is something I wanted to mention in the very beginning.
At the same time, situation on the front line is quite stable, even even more that we managed to regain some territories recently. So this Putin's lie that they're going to take over Donbas anyway, it's a lie. Why it is possible? In particular because, yes, bravery, effective Ukrainian defense, but also innovations. I'll give you one example.
Probably it was the first time then Ukraine used, Ukrainian armed forces used heavy bombers to deliver unmanned land platforms behind Russians' lines and effectively counterattacking and as a result getting control and de-occupying lands in the Lyman area. So this is an example how future wars will look like, but it's already happening today. So it's a big question now how to how to stop Russia because they still have a lot of missiles. They increased their production of missiles, already mentioned jet drones. And why they are able to increase this production?
Number of reasons. As I said, they're not alone. They still use spare parts also produced in the United States, in Europe, in Japan. They get them illegally, which means that we do need to do something with sanctions circumvention.
They still are able to sell a lot of oil and gas, yes, mainly to China and India. And we need to find a solution using sanctions, threatening sanctions, using other political tools to work with third countries, including big countries like China and India. And definitely we need to work together to look for, on one hand, quick solutions to find a remedy against this terrible thing, jet Shahed drones, against Russian ballistic missiles, but also to understand what we are able to do in the mid and long-term perspective together. I'm talking about Ukrainian-European joint capabilities, both ballistic capabilities and anti-ballistic capabilities. And if we are not able to show it now, that we are capable to deliver those capabilities, for Russia it's a most welcome signal that they can continue this terror to the point when Ukraine will break down as they want.
But it's not only about the defense. And yes, you can learn those lessons, but we are talking about this war, which is not Ukrainian war, which is also Europe's war. And we are talking about second front which Russia already opened against Europe, which is a hybrid war. And you see what is happening in many EU capitals in connection to the electoral campaigns. You see what is happening on your borders with Russian provocations with drones.
And also you see this intimidation campaign they're waging, threatening every day that they are about to attack NATO for very simple reason: to distract you from helping Ukraine and create the situation that you say, "Okay, please do not attack us, we understand that it's very difficult to solve Ukrainian issue." And they're doing the same on many fronts. They're offering different opportunities, trade opportunities, economic opportunities. Also now there is a discussion they could consider to free political prisoners to United States, but under one condition: set Ukrainian issue aside. So Russia is actively working.
So we need to probably change the attitude from reactive to proactive. Russia is not so strong as it wants to show. It has a lot of vulnerabilities. I already mentioned that if we go with united front on sanctions, on defense, on financial assistance to Ukraine, we're able to succeed. Last but not least, political perspective: Ukrainian membership in the EU, it's also about the defense, it's also about EU security, because this clarity also about the timeframe, without any speculations it's going to happen in one year, two years, three years, but clarity that Ukraine and other candidate countries will be in the EU, it's very strong signal also to Russia that it has already failed on Ukraine and Ukraine will be independent and European.
Jamie SHEA
Deputy Prime Minister, please stay hopefully with us for the question and answer session because I'm sure there'll be points and questions that people want to put to you. But thank you for being with us and intervening. Thank you, Josef, for your patience, but you have the last word at least when it comes to the panel introductions. I've introduced you already. You spoke in the first session.
When you spoke in the first session, Josef, you emphasized more the civilian aspects of space in terms of developing the European economy and economic growth and its growing importance there. We're obviously looking at defense and security now. So could you tell us a little bit about how you see space becoming more important to Europe's capacity for defense? What about the militarization of space? Is that something, we heard from the US a few weeks ago about the US developing a sort of a space intervention capacity in the military domain.
So, you know, what's happening up there that should really concern us here that's on your mind? And if you look at Russia, China, of course today the United States, it's very much the military investments that seem to be driving space capabilities, unless I've got it totally wrong. But of course we have a civilian European Space Agency, although now with a greater mandate and a bigger budget. So how can the European sort of civilian-military joint approach sort of help us to develop the capacities we need at a time when those three large entities are investing so much in military capabilities? So those were the questions I wanted to put to you.
But again, thanks for your patience. But finally, you have the word, sir. And you have the microphone.
Josef Aschbacher
Thank God for that. So first of all, thank you for having us here. But really, when listening to the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, I have to say we are all touched. Thank you from I think everyone in the room here and certainly also myself. We are very impressed of what is happening, how you defend democracy, how you defend your country, your people, your land, your territory.
It's really impressive and we have a lot of sympathy and we feel for you and we really appreciate what is happening there. So coming to your question now. Yes, for I'd like to make three points. Number one, for obvious reasons, geopolitics, as it was extremely well explained, has changed drastically since very few years, since February '22 in particular. That means in defense and the role of Europe in defense has really drastically, drastically undergone a huge change.
Why? Let me give you the figures and I talk about the figures in space in particular. On average, on the global average of investments in space are coming from two sources, as you mentioned, civilian sources and ministries of defense or defense-related resources. And the global average is about 50-50. This takes China, Russia, United States, Japan, Europe and all countries together.
So on average, 50% of the space funding is civilian, 50% is coming from military budgets. In Europe, until last year, this relation was 15% defense and 85% civilian. So Europe is completely out of tune, if I may call it this way, in terms of providing funding for space activities in terms of its sources where it comes from. Having said that, space has always been and will always be a dual-use technology. It started on day one when we developed rockets.
The Ariane 1 rocket as the first one 50 years ago is a dual-use technology. The rocket itself is dual-use. The satellites we are transporting is dual-use. We transport weather satellites as well as defense satellites. So that means the technology itself is dual-use by nature, by design, and the technologies are very much the same.
That means the same engineering, the same equipment, the same technologies is being utilized.
However, the realization of the geopolitical situation, I call it in the more polite way, has really caused a rethinking, and also in the European Space Agency, you mentioned our new mandate, we have been mostly funded by civilian sources in the past, and we have asked, I have asked my member states, is this the right setup, the right ratio, or shall we change that? And they have actually told me, look, in Europe now we have to change gear, we have to also open much more the defense community to space funding, and that's why we have undergone a very thorough discussion on the legal framework, the political mandate, and the technical capability of how much we should open to defense activities. To make it short, there was a decision unanimously agreed by all the member states of ESA last year in November, that ESA has the capacities and the tools to work in security and defense. And we've got programs and funding to do that, and we're doing it right now. And I'm doing this in preparation on the side of ESA for the European Commission's future funding, and we have the Commissioner Andrius Kubilius here with us, we are working hand-in-hand by the way every single day, we just met yesterday twice on different occasions, and we're doing this really because we are preparing the technology, the European Union obviously has a political mandate and a political responsibility and obviously also the funding, and we really go here hand-in-hand.
My second point is a bit how does this develop into, or my second point is really the fact that we need to act together, and this is not ESA alone, this is also not the Commission alone, this is not the member states alone, this has to be something that has to be discussed well in order to make us ourselves strong. There's a small risk though, and I said it in the previous panel, despite the fact that Europe is under threat on one side in the east, as we all know very well, also in the west, the United States has really told us very clearly, become stronger, become more autonomous, and therefore build up your own capacity, and that's what we're doing. Despite the fact that Europe is under pressure, we're not always sticking together. We're not always uniting our forces and we're not always putting the eggs in the same basket, but we have a renationalization, a fragmentation ongoing, and that is something that worries me, this is a trend and an activity I see. We have European programs, that's what I'm saying, together with European Commission, the European Space Agency, sometimes in the context and in cooperation with the NATO framework.
We have European programs, but also some European states are investing nationally, quite significantly. I take the example of Germany who has put 35 billion funding for space in defense nationally in action, it's being rolled out right now, which is significant amounts of money. Of course, the challenge will be how does this national funding relate to a much wider European framework.
Josef Aschbacher
That is a very good, I have an answer for that, a solution for that, but not a perfect answer because it's the second best answer, not the best. But let me come a bit to the future. So where should this go, and what do we plan to do? I would say that in Europe we have really been waking up, and thanks also to Ukraine and everything that happens there, but we have to speed up, we have to be stronger and bolder. On the European Space Agency side, we have defined a program called European Resilience from Space that is building up this capacity for intelligence, connectivity.
Just yesterday we heard the Commissioner talking about the future orientation on the side of the Commission. There is no time to lose. We have to be extremely fast. And I think Ukraine has put a mirror in front of our face how fast this development has to happen and is happening. And Europe can just not talk and discuss and really we have to act very, very quickly.
And we're doing that. And I think this is something that is building up European capabilities. What we should avoid is that we have the 27 EU member states or that we have 27 silos that are being built up one next to each other. One a bit bigger, the other one a bit smaller. But if we do that, then we are wasting our energy and our money and our time and our resources and we're not acting in the most intelligent way we could.
So this is of course triggered by sovereignty because defence is sovereign and each country can do what they like in the defence activities. But I think what we really have to demonstrate is the European value and the European connection to it. And there's a solution. It's not the perfect one because the perfect solution would be to build up systems from the ground as integrated systems. The second best solution is to connect them through interoperability.
That means you have some of these silos to make sure that they are connected, that means they're interoperable and one can take over and use systems of the other one for robustness but also for capacity increase. And this is exactly what we have to work on. It's easier said than done. There's many dimensions, technically and politically, but this has to happen.
Jamie SHEA
And you've got leverage and influence that you can bring to bear. Thank you, Josef. Thanks very much. In fact, every time I see you, you're in Brussels meeting the Commissioner, so you obviously have a very good and encouraging relationship. Well, thank you.
Our four panelists have been excellent in terms of keeping to time, which means that surprisingly we do have a good half an hour, 35 minutes for our debate. I had two individuals who indicated to me in advance, they put their names on the dance card as it were, that they wanted to come in. First of all, Luminița Odobescu, the Foreign Minister of Romania, if you are in the room, Foreign Minister, just I don't have 20/20 vision any longer, so just checking. No, she's not. Well, the opportunity was given.
It can be restored if she comes later. So the second person is in the room, former Commissioner, trustee of Friends of Europe, Štefan Füle. So Štefan, please start our debate. Just as Štefan gets the microphone, ladies and gentlemen, always glad if you can just give your name and affiliation if you stand up or sit down and ask your question. Not just questions, if you want to make a comment, they're welcome as well.
Please indicate if you want to put your comment to a certain panelist so that's clear so we don't waste time with everybody feeling obliged to give an answer. And unlike me, please be brief and succinct.
Štefan FÜLE
Yeah, thanks very much. I think we should have this debate in conservatory, not in this small room, because if we are not able to solve these kind of issues, then any discussions we might have about our competitiveness and so on is just, you know, waste of time. I mean, three short remarks. Commissioner, congratulation and huge respect what you have done in just very short time, I mean since the new Commission and new portfolio has been created. With every new speech and every new report, you're setting up sort of the new rules of the game.
And this is not a game we are in when it comes to the Russian threat.
The second remark is you have recently participated in the first meeting of the board of the EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance based on President von der Leyen initiatives, and you made it a very clear point that this is also the platform, you know, where we should debate, I mean, how the experience of the Ukrainians defending their country could be transferred to the benefit of the EU to get stronger in this in this field. And that brings me to the third to the third short point and calling on you and on the Deputy Prime Minister, dear Vsevolod, it's very nice to see you, please could I call on both of you working closely on establishing indeed a clear, transparent, and EU-compatible rules for us to work together with the Ukrainian defense industry, and not tomorrow, but the yesterday was late. Thank you very much.
Jamie SHEA
Stefan, thanks very much. Commissioner, I suppose inevitably the question of the EU Drone Alliance, counter-drone capability, would come up today, even if Stefan had not raised it immediately. So obviously we'd like you to comment on this, and also Deputy Prime Minister too, and maybe Assistant Secretary General, what's NATO doing in this sort of drone area as well? And then we'll go to the gentleman there for the next question, but let's let's tackle the drone issue first and foremost.
Andrius Kubilius
Well, thanks a lot, Mr. Fule, you were part of that, and well, you did not spoke about yourself that now you are big, you know, how to say, drone producer and working in that area, so your knowledge is is very is very valuable. Well, first of all, really, I was enjoying this, you know, meeting of the first meeting of of Board of Alliance, because it was showing really that we can, first of all, we can learn a lot from Ukraine, and all the biggest companies from Ukraine and from Europe were were participating. And just, you know, my always what I'm trying to to speak to to the governments and to defense ministers, that really learning from Ukraine first of all brings very simple understanding. When we're talking about drone defense, it would be big mistake for us to think that the only thing which we need to do is to have production of drones. It's obvious.
When you're looking into Ukraine, you see much more. I was it's impossible to measure, you know, what is in drone defense, how how big is, you know, part of drone production, but all that ecosystem which Ukrainians managed to create during the war, drone army and everything else what they are doing, is really what we need to understand and to learn. And I hope that exactly our drone producers will manage to convince our militaries and our governments to look in a much broader way, you know, how how really to be ready to what Ukrainians are doing, you know, getting information from the front line, immediately, you know, adapting, innovating, and so on and so forth. And from us also from production from industrial point of view, I see also very big need to understand what we are facing and what kind of new industrial instruments we need to introduce. You know, Russians are producing 10 million drones per year.
Ukrainians are producing the same. According to our calculation, Europe is producing now 1.5 million. The question is, so what should we do?
Should we produce 10 million also? Ukrainian answer is: well, that would be mistake, because you know, all those kamikaze drones, FPV drones, in two months' time they are becoming obsolete. Obsolete, yeah. So that is what Ukrainians are telling us: look, you need to learn how to scale up your production immediately, tomorrow, if the war starts. And from 1.5 million, you need to scale up to 10 million, maybe.
And that is where we need to come with totally new industrial policy instruments, what we call in short, you know, ever-warm facilities, contracts on ever-warm facilities. That industries are during peacetime are producing 1.5, but they have capabilities, they have production lines, they have components in their stockpiles, they have workforce, you know, ready to scale up. And our operators and militaries also are prepared for that. So that's my point, what I see as big importance for us to learn from Ukraine. Alliance is good.
Now we are coming out also with two EDPCIs out from five related with drones: Drone Defense Initiative and Eastern Flank Watch. And where we are practically trying really, and Ukraine is participating also in that. And that is in my view, EDPCIs really can be, at least my dream and I hope that really it can materialize, that it can be breakthrough in European capabilities to build pan-European projects, which was not, we do not have such capability. Everything in our defense industry is totally fragmented. And Draghi, well, I will not quote all the Draghi report, he is precisely right, but that creates a problem that till now our success in creating pan-European projects was very small and very limited.
So with EDPCIs, with Ukraine, and especially orientating to the drones, I hope that we shall make quite a breakthrough and really learning how to be much more united in building some of pan-European projects, because besides drones, you know, related with drones and Eastern Flank, we have also air and missile defense EDPCI. We have maritime defense and we have space defense, you know, EDPCI to work together on new projects which are very much needed for Europe and we are working really very closely with ESA.
Jamie SHEA
Commissioner, thanks. Deputy Prime Minister, I hope you were able to hear that. I mean, obviously drones is going to be a starting point. Ukraine has been talking to the United States as well, different joint ventures, industry ventures, tie-ups. Obviously we've looked at President Zelenskyy visiting the Gulf countries, naturally with what's been going on in that region, a very strong interest.
So Ukraine has many suitors when it comes to countries, regions wanting to access its expertise and experience. So where does Europe stand in this network of international relationships? And are you happy that you're giving everything to Europe that you can, and that Europe is receiving everything that you are able to give, or are there still sort of gaps in this collaboration which we need to fill?
Vsevolod CHENTSOV
Yeah, thank you very much. Definitely it should be win-win solution. And what is the difference between us and our partners, that we need to defend ourselves now. Yes, we are ready to share, we are ready to produce together, we are ready to do business, our companies are ready to do business on the EU territory. But I repeat once and again, we need you to provide us all possible assistance right now, because Ukraine is bleeding and we need quick solutions.
I will not repeat myself why already now. Regarding, and I wanted to thank Commissioner Füle for first of all for his contribution to creation of this basis, of this fundament of our relations with EU, which we benefit now.
Your contribution was really great and is great in your new capacity. And back to your question about the regulations, how to make it possible if I understood correctly that our defense companies cooperate in the most efficient way. We need to remember that we managed really to build this cooperation during last just last several years. So we started with Danish model, now Ukraine support loan defense part is functioning well. And European Commission, member states, they are doing really great job together with our people coordinating those efforts.
Yes, there are loopholes and we are working on them like export licenses because many Ukrainians companies they are able also to export in order to to get additional funding to develop products, to produce products for our defense needs. Yes, we need still to how to say to fine tune this this element, but I'm sure it's coming. What what we where we see the opportunities again to do something now and Commissioner Kubilius will correct me if I'm wrong. Let's look into the implementation stage of implementation of SAFE program. As far as I understand there is a kind of spare capacity about 20 billion.
Let's see how member states already use this funding, what remains of out of of those 150. And let's see how to use this funding in Ukraine, in the EU because we are talking about quite substantial amount and unfortunately we have a deficit of our defense budget both for this year and for for year 2027.
Jamie SHEA
This is key, make use of available funds. I need to ask everybody for quick answers because I realize that the time does fly once we have the questions. So Assistant Secretary General, how about I mean NATO of course is not leaving the counter-drone effort uniquely to the European Union, I imagine, right?
Tarja JAAKKOLA
No, and neither are we leaving the space completely to the European Union. So I start with the Space Act actually first. So in Hague last year the Alliance approved the NATO Commercial Space Strategy, which is the very first one. And that it was established to kind of give more focus on cooperation with the commercial sector in in this domain. So we have from 2019 we have the NATO Space Policy which says that NATO doesn't own space capabilities.
So so we collaborate very much with the with the civilian sector. We have ongoing actually three specific programs in this domain. Alliance Persistent Surveillance from Space, then we are currently working on collaboration between allies on launch capabilities, program called STARLIFT, and a program called HALO that we launched in Ankara, which is about the avoiding building the silos like Josef said. So building a transport layer between the different national capabilities and facilitating information flow and exchange. We have Space Capability Group as a newly established and we have also Space Industry Network, more than 350 companies including companies from our Indo-Pacific partners coming on board.
So this gives the big picture how much we are also kind of focusing on space. Coming on drones, yes indeed we have a lot of different activities ongoing, very I would say practical ones. In Ankara we launched what we call Drone Edge and part of the Drone Edge there are two different elements. First element is allied informing that in the next five years they will invest 40 billion US dollars in counter-UAS capabilities and second element of increasing and enhancing the training of drone operators. To facilitate national kind of investments in drone capabilities, what we are also doing, we are building a drone marketplace as the first element of that.
Our NCIA, NATO Communications and Information Agency, is putting in place 18 different framework agreements for counter-drone, counter-UAS capabilities. So framework agreements which allies can use very very kind of easily. We have established what we call innovation ranges, drones and counter-UAS one is in Latvia. We organize four different test and operational experimentation events together with the nations and interested companies and together with end users. So companies can come with their innovative solutions, test it, demonstrate, but get feedback from the users and then go back home and further kind of develop their systems.
What we have also done, first edition is what we call innovative solutions catalog. That is kind of a shopping list for the nations to show what solutions there are available at the market at the moment. The focus at this stage is on counter-UAS and drones and what they, what nations already have procured and fielded and what the others could procure also very very fast. So this kind of is a kind of few examples of very practical support that we are providing to the nations, helping them to build their drone and counter-UAS capabilities as well.
Jamie SHEA
Thank you, thank you. There's in both institutions obviously a lot going on. I hope that all of that expertise in one isn't being siloed but can be shared with the other, obviously to help their respective efforts. Sir, you've been waiting patiently for the floor. Joseph, thanks for sitting out this first round.
I promise you you'll get first bite at the cherry in subsequent rounds to compensate. Please.
Speaker 12
Okay, thank you. I'm from Vilnius, Lithuania, from national parliament. Just recently was a minister of culture and now it's a head of delegation to NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Thank you especially Commissioner Andrius and the colleagues for this very clear and timely assessments and especially nice to hear and very important for us to hear directly from Ukraine, Vsevolod, because for all of us Europeans it's, we need to hear Ukraine. I coming from Lithuania, I could say that we have or some advantages or maybe disadvantages to know Russia very well for centuries or maybe especially for the last 50 years occupation which ended in 1990s.
And I fully agree that Europe has to take much greater responsibility for its own security. But I think we should be also honest about an important issue. Europe is increasing spendings, its defense spendings, but are we increasing our defense capabilities quickly enough?
My question, what do you see as the biggest obstacle today? This is a question for Andrius Kubilius today. Money, defense industry capacity, political decisions, or the lack of coordination between European countries? And even more importantly, what should be done, the one decision that Europe must take in the next 12 months if we want to be genuinely prepared for a serious security crisis? You already mentioned, but just to emphasize.
Jamie SHEA
Okay, well I will rudely interrupt you, but with half an apology because your question is clear and it's posed. So let's give the panel time to answer. Now, the question was to you, Commissioner, but Josef, I said that you should be rewarded for your patience. And so that question I first put to you before I put it to the Commissioner. From your perspective in space, is it lack of money, is it lack of industrial capacity, is it not having the right policy framework?
Also, as we are in a transatlantic context as well today, what about cooperation in space with the United States? Is that something that you're still able to sort of keep going even in the current geopolitical environment? And that will give also the Commissioner time to prepare his answer as well.
Josef Aschbacher
Very good. So is it, there's a number of points that we need. Number one, of course, if you have no money, then you cannot develop capabilities. This is very clear. We need to increase the funding.
I take the space example, we are spending one fifth, that means about 20% of what is funded in the United States, which of course is our benchmark in many activities. So if we are not stepping up, we will never get there. It's crystal clear. Number two, and this is a very European problem, if I may call it this way, is our fragmentation between member states and European capacities. And I really, sometimes I put myself out into space, being from space, and I look at Europe from a distance.
And if somebody looks at Europe from a distance, they think we are crazy. We are having this intelligence, the capability we have in industry, we are top level, we have top level experts, engineers, industry among the best in the world. We have some of the world leading systems despite the low funding. However, we are not very smart in putting our efforts and our intelligence and our funding together and make it therefore more powerful and use it in a much more integrated, a much more facilitated way. And this is something where I really fear that this is not going better.
I think we are not in the right path yet to really harmonize and create European capabilities. It is national capabilities in addition to European ones. And I think there is a lot to be done. There are technical solutions, there are governance solutions. I'm not talking politics, that's not for me to comment as a space agency, but certainly at the technical level we can help.
Interoperability is a bit the magic word, but it's too simple to just brush it off and say interoperability solves all the problems. There is a lot of governance and politics needed which goes hand in hand with the question who is calling the shots, that means the owner of this system, whether this is from one country or the other, is in charge. And they are owning it and therefore they define the conditions under which they collaborate and share with others. It can be done, but it needs to be done. And this I think is really handing straight to Andrius Kubilius, the Commissioner, because that is a political discussion which is really in his hands.
Jamie SHEA
Okay, so thank you very much Josef for setting up the question for the Commissioner. So Commissioner, please, I'm going to ask for quick answers because I notice there were about five hands still up, 10 minutes to go. So we'll have a quick final round, but we need to on all sides be extremely brief from now on. Commissioner.
Andrius Kubilius
Well, I am afraid that to my good friend Šarūnas I will not give this magic answer, one what to do, one thing, you know. I do not believe in those, you know, silver bullet decisions. But I agree what Josef said, you know, really, well, money always, there is, you know, I do not see the limits for our appetite. If governments would agree to spend much more, we are ready, you know, to do that. But really, you know, definitely we see the problems with our industry and so on.
We are not producing enough what we need to have. Russia still is outproducing. We love to produce, you know, by our primers what they call then by themselves haute couture production, which is very technologically advanced, very expensive and impossible to ramp up. We need to start to look from Ukrainian experience how to produce more of good enough production, which is hitting the targets, you know, it's not so technologically advanced, but it's, you know, possible to ramp up, it's cheap and so on. And here comes a question, you know, well, very shortly, in my view, when we are talking about our defense readiness, you know, which we are using this terminology, defense readiness 2030 and so on.
I am always saying that from structural point of view we need three pillars of that defense readiness. One is material defense readiness, which usually we are talking a lot about production, procurement, finances and so on. Second, institutional defense readiness. How we are organizing ourselves? How we are making ourselves able to implement, you know, pan-European projects?
Is our structure in general to have 27, you know, member states, 27 armies, 27 defense budgets, 27, you know, defense policies, is that good enough? I'm always saying, you know, let's ask ourselves if Americans would decide suddenly, they will not decide, but if they would decide instead of federal, you know, defense to have 50 on the state level, you know, armies, defense policies and budgets, would they become stronger or not? Absolutely clear that they will not become stronger. But we have this structure, you know, which we, which we have, you know, from, from historical, you know, heritage and so on. So, as I say, institutional defense readiness is crucial.
The third point, the third pillar, political defense readiness. How we are, you know, able to, how should we strengthen our possibility to defend our political will against all the Russian hybrid attacks? So this is crucial. So and, and if you are asking me magical, magical, you know, stick to do something, I would say, you know, why not to come back to 1952 treaty on European Defense Community, which was proposed by, by, you know, Jean Monnet, by Adenauer, by De Gasperi and all others.
Andrius Kubilius
Yeah, from United States. Well, it failed in our beloved France, but, you know, nevertheless, but there are, and it was really ready to create European defense, not just, you know, aggregation of national defenses, but European defense. And there are some, you know, lawyers, which I am not lawyer, I, you know, I, I, how to say, I'm just quoting some lawyers, serious lawyers, who now are saying ratification of that treaty was not finished. So theoretically somebody can decide that we can back, come back to ratification.
Jamie SHEA
I know one such lawyer, so try that. Thank you. SG, yes please, but can I ask it first, blitzschnell please, because we're going to have a quick final round here.
So, please go ahead.
Tarja JAAKKOLA
Yeah, thank you. I was in Tallinn last week during the Estonian Defence Week. Moderator asked there me, is do we have a procurement issue, do we have a industry capacity issue, do we have a innovation issue? I said we have all of them, unfortunately. So, all of in these all areas we need to improve ourselves.
What I see the biggest kind of a challenge is that our policies, our procedures, our regulations have been designed for different times and for different purposes, and they don't necessarily take into account the needs we have at the moment. They are not so much defence focused. But the underlying challenge I think in Europe is, and I talk about Europe as a geographical area, not the EU, is that the threat perception is different in different nations, in different societies, and also the sense of urgency is not understood at the same manner. So those underlying elements when we get right and when we have the similar understanding, then we are able also to work on the more kind of a practical issues. I hope I was short.
Jamie SHEA
Perfect. No, no, thank you for that. I'm sorry it's the dictatorship not of me, but of the clock, which none of us unfortunately can beat. We've, I'm going to take just an extra few minutes here to take advantage of our panel, but not abuse the tolerance of our panel now. So I'm going to ask the people who put their hands up to put their point in one sentence, and not a Proustian sentence.
One sentence. Then I'm going to ask the Deputy Prime Minister on our video screen to start, not answering everything please, but just pick up from the final points, just one or two things that you'd like to comment on. Then we'll go to Josef, then we'll go to the Assistant Secretary General, and then finally Andrius, we'll give you the last word. But this will have to be quick on both sides. So, sir, you first please.
Julien Terron
Thank you very much. My name is Julien Terron. I work for the European Commission Joint Research Centre, and we just produced a report to come on defending Europe against hybrid warfare. And my question is to the Commissioner, what according to you would be the best assets at the EU level to produce to perform extended deterrence, meaning collective deterrence? Thank you.
Speaker 15
Suppose a, yeah, does the toolbox need to be expanded? Thank you for that. That's excellent. Very brief. Yes, to the lady there.
Olesia OTRADNOVA
Hello everyone. My name is Olesia Otradnova. I'm a member of Parliament of Ukraine. Thank you very much for having us here. Actually, I saw the question, one of the questions in the program, so what lessons should Europe draw from Ukraine to prepare for the next war?
I wish Europe would never have the next war. And for this reason, we need to win in this war.
That's a good point.
Olesia OTRADNOVA
To win in this war, we need to be united, because no one country, neither Ukraine nor European country, should stay alone against Russia. So we need to be united. And we need to do practical steps towards to win the war. As our Vice Prime Minister said, we need practical nowadays steps. For example, you provided us aircrafts, but without rockets, without missiles, they are just aircrafts, not a weapon.
So that's why we need the weapon, we need a...
Jamie SHEA
Please, I apologize for my rudeness, but could given our time limit, take your point fully, but could you please encapsulate that into one quick question please, so that the panel can respond?
Olesia OTRADNOVA
It's not a question, it's a comment. We need to win the war and to punish evil, because unpunished evil comes back.
Jamie SHEA
Thank you. Thank you very much. I think the sentiments in the room are with you on that. And again, I apologize for the brevity of everything. Yes please, lady there please.
Sophia in 't Veld
Yes, thank you. My name is Sophie in 't Veld, former Member of the European Parliament.
I'll try and do it in one sentence with quite a few commas and semicolons. Firstly, I would like to to express my gratitude to the Commissioner for his leadership on a common integrated European defense. It is also an issue that has wide public support, but I think nobody has said it yet, but the obstacle to getting there is called national politics. National politicians are blocking this despite the fact that we need this integrated defense for our own security. One last point after the semicolon.
Because I very much appreciate your vision on European defense, I was a bit surprised to hear your praise for the company Palantir. I think Palantir is a threat to our security. It's led by two very deranged individuals who are declared enemies of democracy, of Europe, and who have been interfering in our elections. So I I can't really square that.
Jamie SHEA
Okay, thank you. Point well made. There was also somebody at the back. Yes, here we go, please.
Sandrine Dixson-Declève
Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Honorary President of the Club of Rome, co-founder of the Systems Transformation Hub, and also the Jean Monnet Forum. So the first thing I'd like to say is thank the Commissioner for bringing up the fact that we could go back to a treaty of European defense and create actually our European defense community. So fully agree with that. I'd like to ask the following question, however. Can all of you respond to the need to broaden the notion of security?
We are blinkered by our short-term conflicts rather than addressing the compound effects of water security, climate security, and even the lack of innovation, which is creating also further security concerns. So not looking at the duality of defense in terms of again water, climate, investment in drone technology, satellites, etc. That would be my question. Thank you.
Jamie SHEA
That that's a fair point too. And then finally, and apologies for anybody who doesn't get a chance, but we are running out of time. Gentleman there, please.
Radu Magdin
Radu Magdin, Civil Society Romania. Why not transform Europe in to make an architecture anti-kleptocratic architecture? The Biden administration tried to do something like this, fight against kleptocracy. These guys, our enemies, they fight against us with corruption, with kleptocracy. They don't have an ideology.
They are not Leninists. They fight by networks of corruption. They destroy our society from from from inside. So we need to create something. Biden's has tried to make an anti-corruption, anti-kleptocracy, but now is dismantled.
Why not create Europe something like that? An architecture of anti-kleptocracy globally. Thank you.
Jamie SHEA
Okay. Thank you very much. So we have this sort of theme of how do we make our societies sort of more resilient, our democracy more resilient, at the same time, of course, as coming up with capabilities to defend ourselves. Can we do military defense during a war and focus at some of these longer-term security issues like climate that obviously has really hit us very hard this this summer at the same time? How do you do short-term and medium-term?
Although climate, of course, is happening now, huh, today. We've got this issue still of the national versus the integrated, the role of the tech companies increasingly interfering in every aspect of our lives, including defense, a force for good or a force for evil, and how do we measure that as as as well. And then finally, our toolbox, you know, deterring hybrid war. Is the toolbox do we have at the moment adequate? So Deputy Prime Minister, again with gratitude for staying on the line and staying with us, if in just a minute or two, you could respond to any of those kind of themes or just use the occasion to give us a closing thought to take away with us.
Vsevolod CHENTSOV
Thank you very much. Indeed, I would like to say a few words on resilience and how we tackle hybrid warfare, because we discussed enough how to upgrade our defense capabilities. There is a very good idea of creation of center of democratic resilience, which both European Commission, EAS is pushing, and it's open for both member states and candidate countries, also for industry, for civil society. And this approach is really good, because in this domain we have more to share with you than other way around. And I call you, I mean our European partners, EU partners, really to use this opportunity, because we know how Russia is working.
They adapt their toolkit every day, and we are building our defense. So we need really to join forces here, because as I mentioned at the beginning, they are fighting this war against you already now. And we need to wake up finally. On resilience, Russians destroying every day our communication system, so now they are hitting data centers, they hitting, okay, electricity, today they hit bridge and we had to stop the traffic from one bank of the river to another. We can share with you our experience how to defend critical infrastructure and how to plan building new critical infrastructure, keeping in mind what countries like Russia are capable of.
So I really call you to look into this domain and to start seriously working together. And thank you for this opportunity to be with you today.
Jamie SHEA
Deputy Prime Minister, thanks for that, and again, thank you for giving us your time today. We know it's obviously a difficult daily existence for you, and all the best to Ukraine. And thanks for sharing your experience with us. Look forward, if time and travel permits, to welcoming you back here in person very soon. Thank you.
Josef, any of the points that came up in those final questions that stimulated any closing thoughts from you?
Josef Aschbacher
Thank you. I will be very fast. I said before on your question what is needed to catch up. I think we have to enormously catch up. We are really behind in many aspects.
And I said money and I said defragmentation. There's a third point, which is innovation. And I'd like to really come back to the point made by the lady here in the back of the room. Innovation is, if you really want to catch up, you cannot just replicate what exists and do it ten years later. You have to innovate, you have to come with new solutions, new technologies and completely new ways of doing it.
We can learn by the way a lot from Ukraine how they do it. But innovation is the driver of really catching up. And this is what I would like to really leave in the room as my thought, that without innovation we will never catch up.
Jamie SHEA
Thank you. Assistant Secretary General, is sort of nations going it alone also an issue in the alliance, or people sort of working more in an integrated fashion now given the challenges? And any closing thoughts that you may have?
Tarja JAAKKOLA
So I think I kind of follow on the comments that my fellow Josef has about innovation. So we more and more need to look into not just dual-use, but also the civilian domain, what kind of innovative solutions are being developed and how actually we can utilize them to increase the effectiveness of our warfighters in the battlefield and how can they provide added value to our deterrence and defense.
But then the second issue that I would kind of underline very much is collaboration. Multinational collaboration within the Alliance, and I'm not just, when I talk about Europe, I don't talk about the European Union only. I talk about Europe as a geographical area, because should we have a crisis in Europe, we do then also need the other countries that would be impacted: UK, Norway, and Türkiye, which has a very impressive industrial base, by the way, and can provide a lot of capabilities. So we need to collaborate, we need to be inclusive, but we need to also collaborate with our close partners, and especially when we talk about NATO partners, we talk about our IP4, so Indo-Pacific four partners: Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia as well. Multinational collaboration to build the capabilities that we need to tackle the challenges instead of going nationally, which industry tells me that nations are more and more doing at the moment.
Because we need to be interoperable if we need to fight tonight or tomorrow, but and also there are areas where collaboration can bring economies of scale, cost-effectiveness, and also during sustenance phase. So I think somebody mentioned here national politics, and that is perhaps something also what also is kind of causing some challenges at the moment.
Jamie SHEA
Thank you. And so, Commissioner, the final word to you. You were asked about the adequacy of the current EU toolbox in addressing hybrid threats, the role of the tech companies and, you know, how to sort of get the good out of them while reducing as we can the more negative aspects. And despite all of, you know, your heavy responsibilities in focusing on capabilities and budgets and programs, do you have time, I mean, you're the Commissioner for Defence and Space, but do you have time to think about security, as it were, within the EU in that kind of broader framework as was mentioned by Sandrine earlier? It may be solidarity among European states in responding to climate change or forest fires or pandemics, all the other things we've seen.
Anyway, final word to you, sir.
Andrius Kubilius
Well, defense is about everything. Defense is how to bring security, you know, to our country and how to deter. So defense is definitely from one side, you know, how to build our own defense capabilities, from another side, how to diminish adversary's capabilities. We should not forget, you know. And definitely now we need to be ready for whatever challenges can come for our security.
That is why really I hope that forthcoming European Security Strategy will be quite an inspiration for all of us to look, you know, more, much more broadly. Now, I really, thanks a lot for for mentioning, you know, your report on hybrid, ready to discuss, very, very valuable, really, inputs as always from your side. Because definitely we are still in some kind of, how to say, a little bit of messy understanding what does it mean, you know, hybrid and what should we do. I started to use this formula that, you know, if we are facing hybrid war, we need to have hybrid defense. Including that, you know, when we're talking about hybrid, you know, not everything is very public.
Either about hybrid offensive what adversaries are doing and what how we should defend ourselves. But what we need to learn from, you know, learn, not only from Ukraine but even from Russia, that, you know, what Russians are, how they are looking into everything what we call hybrid threats and hybrid attacks.
They are looking through the eyes of so-called Gerasimov doctrine. From times of Crimea occupation, Gerasimov, chief of staff of Russian army, announced that for them, for military people, there is no difference, no dividing line in between of, whatever, propaganda, interference into elections, all the provocations and things what they are doing now, up to kinetic classical warfare. So that is why what they, and again, that is why I mentioned this political defense as a pillar. Because if you will read Russian some texts of Russian those strategies of hybrid warfare, they speak very simply. The major goal is to occupy hearts and minds of the people of the country which you want to target.
If you are able to occupy, then everything else, military occupation is becoming either not needed at all or much simpler. So that is their strategy. How to defend ourselves, how really not to allow Russians to achieve any kind of outcomes which they want to achieve, and how really to hit back in a painful way, not similar way, but in a painful way, that is a big issue and I am happy that you will maybe give us good advice on that. Now I would like to react also to what our Ukrainian colleague has said. Our support to Ukraine and Ukrainian support to us.
What we need to really to understand that with Ukrainian developments, with Ukrainian technological developments, for us it's a crucial priority really to have Ukraine not only defended by their territory with our assistance, but also integrated as deeply as we can achieve with all our defense systems and defense industries. Palyanytsya, development of Hrim, of ballistic missiles in Ukraine. This is what we lack in Europe. And that is why we are, we want to help and to build together because this is needed not only for Ukraine but also for us. Now tech companies.
Yeah, that's a big issue, but we need to understand how rapidly war technologies are changing. And either we shall engage with the technology companies and be ready what our adversaries can develop, including AI in defense and so on, or we shall be left very much behind. So definitely Palantir, I will not speak about Palantir too much. I know that NATO has contracts with Palantir. It's very advanced company and so on.
But what we need to have, we need to have European Palantir. That's my point. And that is where we are looking with the IPCEIs, how really to become much stronger in that area where Palantir now is really leading, technological area. We shall do that. On, yeah, I told about broader security strategy.
And again, corruption everywhere is a channel which is very easily used by our adversaries. And that is what we need to understand. So cleaning our political systems, making them much more resilient to any kind of influences, and using really power of state, power of institutions. I'm always saying that recent experience also in Romania with the previous elections, or Moldova elections, where institutions were able really to fight against huge attempts from Moscow to interfere, and that was what brought additional trust of the people to Moldovan state, that it's really able to defend. So that is why we need to learn from recent experience of other countries.
Jamie SHEA
Commissioner, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for being a lousy timekeeper, but I think the, your patience in sort of missing your sandwiches for a few minutes, hopefully there are some left from the more disciplined groups that preceded us, but I think your patience has been rewarded with a very rich conversation. We've had four great panelists. We've had millions of, well, maybe not millions, but several extremely good insights, lots of useful information. You've been very generous with your time as well as with your intellect.
Thank you so much for joining us today. Again, Deputy Prime Minister also from Kyiv, Commissioner, ASG, Josef, Director General, thank you for being great friends of Friends of Europe. Thanks everybody for staying the course. That's what you need in defense, sustainability. And let me therefore conclude the proceedings.
I know that many of you love to listen to my detailed summing up of the discussion at the end of these sessions, but I will spare you that experience today. Thank you again.