In his written answers to questions put to him by the European Parliament, published on Wednesday 23 October, the Commissioner-designate for Defence and Space, Andrius Kubilius, set out his vision of a ‘European Defence Union’, highlighting the need for core defence policy and defence industrial policy to work together.
“Common Security and Defence Policy aspects are no longer dissociable from EU defence industrial policy. Those in charge of monitoring the threats and identifying corresponding needs must coordinate more effectively with those in a position to activate our industrial programmes and associated resources. This is not just a condition of our success. This is the very core of our mission”, explains Mr Kubilius.
The Commissioner-designate intends to create a genuine single market for defence. He explains that the emphasis will be on standardisation and convergence on certification. In his view, we also need to think in terms of better market access for all businesses, including SMEs, greater and more fluid cross-border cooperation and increased security of supply.
The candidate also intends to “considerably” strengthen the overall resilience of the European defence technological and industrial base (EDTIB). This means “improving the lasting access of European defence companies to critical raw materials, components and technologies; establishing a robust governance of the single market; and preventing any restrictions on the use of defence products”.
Mr Kubilius wants to “instil a genuine spirit of solidarity and European cooperation in anything that we do in relation to defence at EU level”. “This must translate not only in cooperation becoming the norm among Member States with respect to defence investment, but also in a genuine objective of inclusiveness through the Europeanisation of supply chains whenever possible”, he adds.
The Commissioner-designate is also focusing on funding. “Securing investment in both the defence industry and space sector will be an overarching priority of this mandate”, he promises. In his view, one way forward would be to pool resources in flagship European Defence Projects of Common Interest, as occurs with space programmes like Copernicus and Galileo.
Mr Kubilius will also endeavour to ensure the most efficient use of the resources available in the EU budget. “This implies to – first – decide on the priority areas for defence spending and – second – discuss which of these priorities need common funding at EU level to be achieved in a shorter framework and [at] a lower overall cost”. Mr Kubilius also believes that in order to strengthen defence preparedness, it is necessary to “mainstream this culture across EU policies and address the issue of access to finance”, although he does not take a position on possible solutions.
Given the constraints on public funding, Mr Kubilius believes it is essential to encourage private investment in defence.
He also explains that in the longer term, public and private investment in defence research and development will have to increase considerably, describing the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as an “inspiring model”.
Finally, the Commissioner-designate highlights the integration of the Ukrainian and European defence and space industries, Ukraine’s access to other EU support instruments and industrial collaboration on space issues.
Space. As far as space is concerned, the former Lithuanian prime minister advocates a real “change of paradigm”.
In the first half of 2025, he intends to propose an EU Space Law that paves the way for a single market for space. “This will foster the competitiveness of our space industry, create more business opportunities and simplify life for our space companies”, he explains.
For the time being, Mr Kubilius intends to focus on the continued development of space services in support of defence, in particular Galileo and IRIS2, the EU Secure Connectivity Programme.
In the medium term, he will be working on the development of new services for government use in the field of Earth observation.
Finally, in the long term, the Commissioner-designate wants to develop autonomous capabilities in the field of space operations and services. In particular, he intends to push ahead with work to support a European space industry, “in particular [by] fostering a strategic approach on launch capacity, research and innovation, and supporting innovative start-ups and scale-ups”.
See Mr Kubilius’ answers: https://aeur.eu/f/dzu (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)