European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Opening Statement by Commissioner Kubilius at the European Parliament Security and Defence Committee hearings Brussels, 1 October 2026 It's a pleasure to come back to SEDE. I am grateful for our great partnership. A lot of things are happening in European defence. I have sent you my annual implementation report. I welcome your report on common security and defence...
European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Opening Statement by Commissioner Kubilius at the European Parliament Security and Defence Committee hearings Brussels, 1 October 2026 It's a pleasure to come back to SEDE. I am grateful for our great partnership. A lot of things are happening in European defence. I have sent you my annual implementation report. I welcome your report on common security and defence policy. It's difficult to cover everything in detail. So today, I will focus on 4 topics: the State of the Union, Ukraine, material defence readiness, and our Space for defence agenda. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's State of the Union Address is an important breakthrough in European defence, especially in “institutional defence readiness”. Two most important quotes: First, - “our [defence] doctrine, our institutions and our decision-making have not kept pace with the new reality.” And second, - “This is why we will set out our ideas to make a European Security Council [with partners like Canada, Norway, Ukraine, the United Kingdom]- a reality.” It's a call for a “big bang' in “institutional defence readiness”. Thanks a lot for your report on the institutional aspects of European defence, for your initiatives, informal cross party groups to support a European Security Council and European Defence Union. That's how this “big bang” was born and how it will become a reality. In my personal view, the establishment of a European Security Council and a European Defence Union are very closely interlinked. To make our defence institutions fit for the new security reality and fit for “NATO 3.0” we urgently need a new European defence architecture – to resolve two major issues. First, an expanded geographical basis. Closely involving partners like the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Norway, and Canada. Second, the capability to effectively take decisions. That is why we need an “E5+” type European Security Council. In my personal view, this could serve as leadership body for the European Defence Union, which could work together with a broader General Assembly of all the members of European Defence Union. More clarity will come with the European Security Strategy probably by end October. We have to wait until then to see its exact shape, which will nevertheless be for the Member States to take up. The Commission President also spoke about another important defence institutional topic: “an Emergency Security Protocol”, to deal with hybrid attacks. Attacks that remain under the threshold of armed aggression – which is instead covered by Art. 42(7) TEU. Member States should also make decisive progress in the operationalisation of the mutual assistance clause. The forthcoming European Security Strategy will be key for our “institutional defence readiness”. Support to Ukraine is our strategic priority. Russia is escalating, we need to make our support stronger, more effective and predictable. All the weapons schedules for the 2026 Ukraine Support Loan have been approved, for 28.3 bln euro. That includes PAC-3 antiballistic missiles from the USA. Last week we disbursed another 3.32 billion euro, bringing the total to 11.7 billion euro. I am confident we will be able to disburse the full 28.3 billion for 2026 by the end of the year. But that will not be enough. More bilateral support is essential. This year, Ukraine's defence is facing a deficit of 23 bln euro. The cause: unfulfilled promises made by individual countries during the Ankara NATO summit to provide more than 40 bln euros. We need to remember: 3/4 of individual support comes from just 5 European countries. Where are the others? And finally on Ukraine: We have around 20 billion euro in unused SAFE loans. We plan to use this to open a second call, as the President announced in her State of the Union speech. Goal for this second call: to do more with Ukraine, both in Ukraine and in the EU; both for Ukraine and for ourselves given Ukraine's lead in defence innovation. Material defence readiness is our clear priority: a big bang for production, procurement, finances. On Monday in the Foreign Affairs Council-Defence we discussed the “Defence Readiness Report”, prepared by the EDA, with the Commission and EEAS. A valuable report, objective and frank, showing our progress and non-progress in defence readiness. The Report is still not public, but I can quote what Reuters wrote about it: “The European Union is not rearming quickly or effectively enough to meet its goal of being ready to defend against Russia by 2030, according to the executive summary of an EU report prepared for the bloc's leaders and seen by Reuters.” This is a warning signal: big changes are needed to implement the Defence Readiness Roadmap. We need to make the Member States' Capability Coalitions much more effective. It would be a big mistake to continue in the same way. Let's remember the words attributed to Albert Einstein: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. The Commission is implementing a lot of new initiatives and instruments to help industries and Member States ramp-up their defence readiness. Your excellent report on flagship European defence projects of common interest – EDPCIs – is bearing fruit. EDIP now provides the legal framework for EDPCIs. This is our chance for a breakthrough with pan-European projects, where Member States and EU institutions can work together. To match common European defence needs with pan-European industrial capacity. I am sure the EDPCIs will create a strong synergy between Member States, EU institutions and European defence industry. They will allow us to overcome the slow speed of the purely national “bottom-up” approach, which until now prevailed in the development of European defence capabilities. On Monday the Council approved the first five EDPCI's: 1. Drone and Counter-drone Defence; 2. Space-based Capabilities; 3. Integrated Maritime and Seabed Defence; 4. EU Federated Air& Missile Defence; 5. Eastern Flank Watch; Some of the EDPCIs cover “Strategic Enablers”. Additional EDPCI's will be approved later. A big challenge for our defence readiness and defence ramp up is security of supply; We cannot produce enough ammunition [MM3] or drones, if we fail to resolve the lack of nitro- cellulose or magnet materials. That's why we allocated 160 million Euros from EDIP for industrial support instruments for companies ready to produce critical components. Other initiatives will follow. Russia is still outproducing us. Our defence industry is increasing production, sometimes substantially, but still too slowly. First, we must move from “Haute Couture” to “Good Enough” production. That is the lesson of Ukraine: Good enough to hit the targets, less technically advanced, cheaper and easier to scale production. That's also the goal of our “Agile” agenda – so I thank you for reaching an agreement on AGILE in record time. Second: Framework contracts for “ever warm facilities”: We need industries that keep production lines ready, to surge defence production in times of crisis. These industries will have EU funded contracts to de-risk investments and running costs. Everything is fragmented in defence: Procurement, production, certification, intra-EU transfers, testing, etc. This fragmentation prevents industries to ramp-up production. The last European Council expressed very strong support for an integrated defence market! And it's also strongly supported by the European Parliament. We will soon present a defence market package, including revision of the Defence procurement directive. The famous American General John Pershing used to say : “Battles are won by infantry, wars - by logistics”. Th the importance of military mobility for defence readiness. An important trilogue is coming up - let's keep the Military Mobility package ambitious! Modern defence readiness is impossible without space. We have an ambitious agenda. 1. IRIS2 for secure satellite communication (our “Starlink”) will start operations in 2029 with 350 satellites; until 2029 we will have govsatcom services; 2. There's good progress in the development of the Earth Observation Governmental Service - “eyes in the skies” for our defence and security services; 3. LEO PNT - Low Earth Orbit Positioning, Navigation, and Timing: from 2027 it will no longer be possible to jam and spoof our navigation signals. 4. Launching – the most important strategic priority on our space agenda. I am going on a “Launching Tour” to find out how we can ramp up our “Space Readiness.” ************ That is in short our agenda for our defence readiness. Let's continue working together, to make it a reality. SPEECH/26/2040 <@rel_link@>
Speech Brief