The European Commission’s drone wall idea is showing cracks before intercepting its first Russian intruder.
With Russian drones crossing into Poland and Romania and unidentified (but suspected Russian) ones being tracked over Denmark, Norway and Germany, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is pitching a shiny new shield of radars and interceptors to help defend the bloc’s eastern flank.
She called it a “drone wall” in her State of the Union address last month.
Both the name and the concept are drawing flak.
For the Baltics and Poland it sounds like a sensible response to a growing emergency. But countries further from Russia are poking holes in the idea, worrying about its feasibility and cost, how it fits into EU and NATO military plans, and whether it’s a power grab by Brussels over national defense policy.
“Drones and anti-drones are the priority,” French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters on Thursday. “But we have to be clear: There is no perfect wall for Europe, we’re speaking about a 3,000-kilometer border, do you think it’s totally feasible? The answer is ‘no.’”
Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius, a former Lithuanian prime minister, sprang to its defense. He said the original plan for countering drones covering Poland and the Baltics would cost about €1 billion, and getting detection capabilities in place could be done in less than a year.
However, he conceded that calling it a “wall” might give the wrong idea. It “wouldn’t be a new Maginot Line,” he said, referring to the French defensive fortifications that Germany successfully bypassed in World War II.
There are also worries that the Commission may be over-promising.
“I hope no one sees the drone wall as an easy fix to our defense problems,” said Hannah Neumann, a German Greens MEP and a member of the European Parliament’s Security and Defense Committee. “A drone wall won’t protect us from cyberattacks, nor will it help with air defense, ammunition production, or the deeper issues around decision-making structures and rules of engagement.”
EU money to fight drones
The divergences are especially problematic because Brussels together with frontline states want to use EU money to help fund the drone wall; for that to happen, all EU capitals have to agree.
The reluctance of Southern countries — Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Greece’s Kyriakos Mitsotakis both said during this week’s Copenhagen meeting of EU leaders that European defense projects should benefit the whole bloc, not only its Eastern flank — prompted calls for “solidarity” from exposed nations.
“We have shown solidarity for the last two decades, for example, in Covid, in economy, in migration. Now is the time to show solidarity in security,” Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told POLITICO.
That disagreement was on full display in Copenhagen, both publicly and behind closed doors. Inside the room, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz slammed the plan in what one diplomat familiar with the discussion described as “very harsh” terms.
Defending against Russia
Despite quibbling over the size — as well as the name — of the drone wall, there is little debate that Europe needs to improve its ability to fend off Russian drones. The bloc lacks detection tech to easily pick up UAVs, and when NATO jets downed three Russian drones over Poland last month, they used multi-million-dollar missiles to knock down Russian Gerberas costing about $10,000 each.
Although there were objections in Copenhagen, in the end EU leaders accepted the Commission’s defense proposals, including the drone wall — which means it’s expected to go ahead in some form. However, details on timing, cost and capabilities still need to be spelled out.
And the branding is likely to change.
On Wednesday, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen talked about a “European network of anti-drone measures.” When she was asked by a journalist why she hadn’t used the term “drone wall,” she replied: “I don’t really care about the name as long as it works.”
Beefing up anti-drone efforts makes sense at a time when Russia is probing NATO defenses. However, the measures aren’t a panacea — especially if the confrontation with Moscow gets closer to full-out war.
“A drone wall can work regionally — in the Baltics you can build a static defense,” said Christian Mölling, defense analyst and program director at the Bertelsmann Foundation. “But drones are only the fingers; if you want to win, you must target the head: command, logistics and production capacity.”
Frontline states have no illusions that a drone wall alone will suffice to prevent a Russian attack. But they argue something has to be done to deter Moscow.
“Of course, we are realists … we do not expect, for example, a drone wall on our border that will eliminate any threats 100 percent,” said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. “If someone is looking for 100 percent guarantees of security, they will find nothing. We, as NATO, as Europe, must look for methods that maximize our security.”
Jan Cienski and Joshua Berlinger contributed to this report.
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