European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Speech by Commissioner Lahbib at the North Atlantic Council Brussels, 1 October 2026 Let's take a quick look at today's reality. A drone entering our airspace. Cyberattacks on our hospitals. Disinformation targeting our elections. Sabotage plots across our Union. These acts are not random. They are deliberate, and they are happening on our soil. Their aim is to sp...
European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Speech by Commissioner Lahbib at the North Atlantic Council Brussels, 1 October 2026 Let's take a quick look at today's reality. A drone entering our airspace. Cyberattacks on our hospitals. Disinformation targeting our elections. Sabotage plots across our Union. These acts are not random. They are deliberate, and they are happening on our soil. Their aim is to spread fear, divide us, and weaken our support for Ukraine. We are not at war, but we are not at peace either. This grey zone puts the infrastructure we rely on every day on the frontline. Our airports, our power grids, our ports. So we must protect them like the frontline. We have to move faster than the threat, see it coming, and be ready when it arrives. That is the challenge for all of us in this room. In the coming weeks, President Von der Leyen will present our European Security Strategy that she announced during her State of the Union speech. We are building a new security mindset across Europe to shape how we make policy, where we invest, and how we prepare. I will focus on two areas today: our European Preparedness Strategy and how we are bringing civilian and defence readiness closer together, including with NATO. Today we must be ready both on the frontline and on the home front. Russia has brought war back to our continent, disinformation is eroding public trust, climate shocks are hitting harder, and these threats overlap. This summer the wildfire I saw in La Gironde threatened critical infrastructure and military assets. It triggered the largest evacuation in France since the Second World War. Crises do not always come one by one. They can hit the same place at the same time and spread fast from one sector to the next. That is why we prepare for all hazards at once. Reacting after a crisis hits is no longer enough. That is why last year we launched our EU Preparedness Strategy. It gets the whole of society involved and its central idea is simple: anticipate earlier, prepare better, act faster. That is why civilian and military preparedness are so important today. They are not separate tracks. A strong civilian base reinforces our military, allowing them to focus on defence. The military can be vital when a crisis overwhelms civilian services, and vice versa. We saw that during Covid, when patients were moved with military transport. EU–NATO cooperation has never been more vital than today. Good decisions start with a clear picture of the risks. Later this year, we will publish our Comprehensive Risk and Threat Assessment. For the first time, it puts security threats, natural hazards, technological risks, and cross-border health threats together on one single map. It shows how risks collide and spread. A lack of coordination can be exploited by a hostile actor and spread mistrust and panic among our citizens. In our strategy, we are applying the principle of "preparedness by design." Before we spend a euro or design a policy, we ask two simple questions. Does this make Europe stronger? And will it still work under pressure? EU cohesion funds can now finance dual-use infrastructure and civilian preparedness. I recently visited Romania, where the country is investing in two multipurpose aircraft as part of its NATO commitment on civilian preparedness. They can deliver emergency aid, carry out search and rescue, bring citizens home in a crisis, and if needed, they can support military operations. The same plane, many missions, stronger security. That is smart preparedness. We also need the private sector on board. Much of the infrastructure that keeps our societies running is privately owned: our energy grids, ports, telecoms, and supply chains. When these systems fail, we feel it immediately: the lights go out, phones go silent, trains stop running, and supermarket shelves empty. Their resilience is no longer only an economic issue. It is a security issue. In November, I will launch a Public-Private Preparedness Task Force at the Civil Protection Forum. We need to move from handshakes to concrete plans. Our Member States face different threats, so they prepare differently. We want to help them reach a level playing field. We are proposing EU Minimum Preparedness Requirements, a common baseline for crisis readiness to support Member States, who are always the first responders. These requirements set out what every country needs to keep vital services running during a crisis and to keep military forces and supplies moving. There will be no duplication. We have worked closely with NATO to make sure our EU requirements and NATO's requirements are aligned, complement, and reinforce each other. But preparedness is not only about requirements, governments, armed forces, or companies. Preparedness lives in every home. Later this year, we will give people practical guidance on how to manage for at least 72 hours during an emergency. We will strengthen preparedness in schools and build media literacy, so people can recognise disinformation before it spreads. This summer, I met people forced to flee the fires. They told me how terrifying it was, and part of the fear was simple: they did not know what to do or what to take with them. Now imagine that same fear during a conflict. The power is out. Your phone has no signal. An evacuation order arrives. People need to know what to do before the crisis comes. The time to learn is before the sirens. That brings me to my main focus: civil-military cooperation. In this new era of European security, civilian and military preparedness depend on each other more than ever. In July last year, we adopted our Stockpiling Strategy to keep essential goods moving across Europe in peacetime, in crisis, and in conflict. At the same time, we adopted our Medical Countermeasures Strategy, drawing on NATO's Medical Action Plan, which strengthens health preparedness across the civil-military line. Our new Medifence initiative brings civilian and military health systems closer together to respond faster to CBRN threats and major emergencies. Through joint research, it can help develop antitoxins that save civilians and soldiers alike after a nerve-agent attack. We are also expanding our rescEU medical reserves against these threats. And this week, NATO's Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre is joining our CBRN exercise on radiological incidents. Civilian and military responders will train on the same scenario side by side. We also need to invest smarter in dual-use infrastructure. Investments that protect people in a civilian crisis and strengthen our security when the pressure becomes military. I saw an excellent example in Finland, where bunkers built for war are actually used as underground playgrounds, gyms, and swimming pools and can be converted into emergency shelters within hours. Dual-use investment is also reinforcing our autonomy, from critical equipment to secure energy systems. Speaking about energy, we all know how essential energy grids are for a country at war, like Ukraine. Russia is targeting Ukraine's energy infrastructure almost daily. The EU is Ukraine's largest donor. Like every winter since 2022, we are helping Ukraine prepare for the coming winter. Last year, we provided 1,000 generators to keep Ukrainian homes warm. Since 2022, the EU and its Member States have mobilised over 220 billion euros in support. Through our Union Civil Protection Mechanism, we have evacuated more than 5,300 patients, including soldiers, for treatment across Europe. We have also delivered close to 160,000 tonnes of assistance, including from our rescEU reserves. Thanks to the generosity of Lithuania, and EU logistics support, last year an entire power plant was dismantled, piece by piece, and sent to Ukraine. Ukraine has also taught us a lot. It has shown us what it takes to keep a country running under fire. We should gather these lessons and turn Ukraine's experience into a shared European asset. This will help us to prepare and train better, including for the worst case. Civil-military cooperation cannot be improvised. That is why we have proposed Comprehensive Civil- Military Preparedness Arrangements, with the EU High Representative Kaja Kallas. This is a new process that aims to identify in advance how citizens, businesses, public services and the military cooperate in a moment of crisis. Imagine a major crisis on Europe's eastern border. Thousands of civilians may need to move west to safety, while troops, military equipment and supplies move east to the frontline. They may need the same roads in opposite directions. The same railways. The same airports. Hospitals could suddenly fill with casualties with fuel running low and communications networks under pressure. That is not when we should start deciding who does what, where, and when. We need to plan for that now. This is not about changing competences or existing frameworks, including for information sharing. It is about strengthening the dialogue between civilian and military authorities, so they build trust and know their role. In the same spirit, we need to make better use of the EU's solidarity clauses, Articles 222 and 42.7. We must also strengthen EU-NATO cooperation if they are ever activated, including if NATO's Article 5 is activated. That is why strong EU–NATO complementarity, and permanent dialogue at the highest level, will remain essential. We have also proposed to strengthen our Civil Protection Mechanism. This includes a new EU Crisis Coordination Hub, building on our Emergency Response Coordination Centre. With a single point of entry, it will help us anticipate threats, improve coordination, and support Member States in managing the cascading effects of a crisis. We have seen how quickly that can happen. Conflict in the Middle East has disrupted transport routes, hitting energy and fertilizer supplies and leading to shortages thousands of kilometres from the fighting. A crisis may start in one place, but its shockwaves can travel across continents. Preparedness also has to be practiced. That is why we test our plans with regular exercises. One of my main takeaways from my visit to Fukushima was this: you can have the best plans on paper, but if you don't train in advance, they won't work. So we need to increase our training. Our PACE exercises are one of the best examples of EU-NATO cooperation in practice. This year's Integrated Resolve exercise will test how Europe responds to a major hybrid crisis cutting across sectors and institutions, including at the highest political level. This cooperation goes both ways. Early next year, EU staff will take part in NATO's 2027 Crisis Management Exercise. The best way to learn from each other is by working side by side, sharing experience, and know-how. Being ready for the unexpected, for the threats we cannot yet see, this is our biggest challenge. Just think back to the Covid pandemic, and who knows what AI will bring, so preparedness also requires imagination. No paranoia. No anxiety that keeps you awake at night. Just lucidity, and preparedness that gives you peace of mind. That is how we strengthen our security, protect our peace and protect our citizens. SPEECH/26/2035 <@rel_link@>
Speech Brief