During a debate in European Parliament on Tuesday 16 June, MEPs called on the European Union to take more measures to combat drone incursions into Member States’ airspace.
“The Russians are testing us. We must not accept anything from Putin; that should be our red line. And we must have a uniform EU response”, stressed Nicolae Ștefănuță (Greens/EFA, Romanian).
“When a hostile aggressor targets one Member State, it targets the EU as a whole. It will therefore face a united response”, said Pekka Toveri (EPP, Finnish), who is calling on the EU to “demonstrate firmness and strong military capabilities”. “We must now urgently strengthen our counter-drone capabilities, in close cooperation with Ukraine”, he added.
Victor Negrescu (S&D, Romanian) also argued for concrete measures, such as a European early warning and detection system, stronger anti-drone protection, European funding for the defence of critical infrastructure, a European mechanism providing rapid support to communities under threat, and the swift implementation of the Black Sea maritime security hub.
“The better we can react, the less nervous we’ll be, the more credible we’ll be — and therefore more deterrent”, summed up Pierre-Romain Thionnet (Patriots for Europe, French). He urged precision in describing incidents, otherwise “opposing propaganda outlets will use them to discredit what we say and hammer home the message that the Russian threat is a collective fantasy”.
Reinis Pozņaks (ECR, Latvian) and Petras Auštrevičius (Renew Europe, Lithuanian) called for additional measures against Russia, which would reduce its ability “to continue its attacks against Ukraine and the EU“.
For her part, EU High Representative Kaja Kallas said Europeans had to strengthen their capacity to respond to Russian provocations targeting their territory and reinforce the protection of all EU borders. “We must also advance our strategy to combat hybrid attacks. This requires better situational awareness, increased resilience, protection of our critical infrastructure and an operational response capacity”, she stressed. According to the High Representative, the EU must also improve its capacity to quickly attribute hostile acts and impose the cost on Russia. “We must remain calm, united and firm in our response”, she summed up.
The issue of drone incursions into European territory will be discussed at the European Council meeting on 18 and 19 June, and European Parliament will vote on a resolution on the matter this Thursday. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)