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« L'Europe doit changer sa conception de la guerre moderne », déclare le chef de la défense de l'UE
Les incursions de drones dans l'espace aérien des États membres de l'UE modifient les doctrines de guerre, et la réponse de l'UE à ce problème reste inadéquate, a déclaré le chef de la défense de l'Union à Euronews. À cet égard, l'UE peut tirer une leçon de l'Ukraine.
LIRE L’ARTICLE : http://fr.euronews.com/2025/12/10/leurope-doit-changer-sa-conception-de-la-guerre-moderne-declare-le-chef-de-la-defense-de-l
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Les incursions de drones dans l'espace aérien des États membres de l'UE modifient les doctrines de guerre, et la réponse de l'UE à ce problème reste inadéquate, a déclaré le chef de la défense de l'Union à Euronews. À cet égard, l'UE peut tirer une leçon de l'Ukraine.
LIRE L’ARTICLE : http://fr.euronews.com/2025/12/10/leurope-doit-changer-sa-conception-de-la-guerre-moderne-declare-le-chef-de-la-defense-de-l
Abonnez-vous à notre chaine. Euronews est disponible sur Dailymotion en 12 langues
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NewsTranscription
00:00Hello and welcome to the Europe Conversation, I'm Stefan Grobe.
00:11My guest today is a man who stood up to Moscow when he was Prime Minister of Lithuania more than 10 years ago.
00:18An experience that serves him well today as the European Union's first ever Commissioner for Defence, Andrius Kubilius.
00:26Thank you for coming on the show, sir.
00:28My pleasure.
00:28So, as Prime Minister, you took on the Russian energy sector.
00:33You claimed compensation for damages during the Soviet era in vain to this day.
00:39Problems that only sound too familiar in Ukraine today.
00:43Does Russia ever going to change?
00:47Well, I still hope that we shall see at some time, many years in the future, more normal Russia.
00:54Today, definitely, Russia with Putin is a bigger threat to European security, and we see the terrible war in Ukraine.
01:03And that is what we were able to predict almost 10 years ago, where Russia is moving.
01:09It's almost more than a year now that you're a Commissioner for Defence, a portfolio that has become the most important, the most consequential within the European Commission.
01:20Did you see that coming?
01:21Well, when I was nominated as the first ever Commissioner for Defence and Space, he was quite sceptical opinions around that, well, what this Commissioner will do, that Europe is not so much engaged into defence.
01:38But that was really a prudent decision by Commission President to establish such a portfolio, because during this year, really, defence became one of the most important strategic priorities for the whole Europe.
01:52And we're doing quite a lot. We managed to achieve, you know, we created a lot of what I call opportunities for member states to develop their defence capabilities, especially financial opportunities, for example, safe loans.
02:07And that allows us to move ahead with our very clear plans, what we call a roadmap on defence readiness, defence readiness which we need to achieve before 2030.
02:20Let me follow up on this. So the European Union has no army. It doesn't have a command structure like NATO. So what does the EU bring to the table? What can the EU that NATO cannot do?
02:34Well, NATO has military power. We have industrial power. And when we put both things into one system, it brings really our defence readiness, because NATO is defining so-called capability.
02:50We have a lot of capability targets, defence capability targets, in terms of how many tanks, how many artillery pieces our armies need to have.
02:57And we are coming with our industrial policy. As European Union, we are now exactly coming to a very important new stage with European defence industry programme,
03:13a new system of industrial policy instruments. And also we can raise additional funds, what we did, for example, with the safe loans.
03:23We are planning to increase our defence spending in the next multi-annual budget by five times.
03:31So a lot of things which where we are really able to help member states to develop those capabilities which they need to have in order to be ready to defend and to deter whatever our adversaries are planning.
03:42Yeah. And of course, why is you're doing this? Because of the war in Ukraine that is now four years and counting.
03:51The latest push by the Trump administration to bring about peace between Ukraine and Russia.
03:58What is your assessment here? Should the Ukrainians accept it?
04:02Well, Ukrainians really deserve peace. And this criminal war really should be stopped.
04:09But peace should come on a, you know, some kind of just basis, you know, and peace needs to bring guarantees that this such kind of peace will be sustainable.
04:23And I am not so sure that Putin will agree with that.
04:28So there are really, well, we can congratulate the US administration that they are pushing for peace.
04:37Of course, some of the ideas maybe are, you know, not always acceptable and here European leaders are showing very, very, very clear our position.
04:49We are helping Ukrainians also to withstand and to bring some new ideas, but we shall see.
04:57And it depends really on Putin.
04:59And I am not so sure that without, without much stronger pressure on him, that he will be convinced to sit down and to end this war.
05:09A lot of people think that Putin is the perfect Trump whisperer on the international stage and that Trump is doing this for different reasons, like he wants to make money, he wants to get the Nobel Peace Prize.
05:22How serious is this effort?
05:24Well, I cannot, you know, evaluate here.
05:27At least he's showing initiative.
05:29He is trying to, you know, to push for peace.
05:33That's, you know, we can only congratulate.
05:36If the ways in which, you know, those attempts are moving ahead, if those ways are appropriate, it's difficult to say.
05:45What would be important perhaps that we as Europeans, as European Union, should not wait always when, you know, some kind of new peace plans will come from Washington DC.
05:57It would be good for us also to have initiative on our side and to prepare our plan.
06:02But how can Europe do that?
06:04Trump is deliberately sidelining the Europeans.
06:07He doesn't want to deal with them.
06:09Yet, we're there.
06:10We're a neighbour of Ukraine.
06:12We're much more impacted by this war.
06:15So what can European diplomacy do exactly?
06:19We can do, as I said, you know, we can really be stronger and more effective in showing our support to Ukraine in such a way that, you know, it would be a strong message to Putin that he will not be able to achieve an end.
06:36First of all, our financial support, military support, for example, for Ukrainian capabilities to do deep strikes into Russian territory.
06:48Also, you know, our support to air defense systems in Ukraine where they need to defend the energy infrastructure and so on.
06:55So there are things which we can, you know, move ahead.
06:59We can put that into some kind of package and that should be effective for our alternative peace plan.
07:07So the latest Russian provocations have sort of changed the tone in European cabinets.
07:13And there are now more voices who say that Europe should go on the offensive when it comes to hybrid attacks, etc.
07:21Europe should hit back with offensive operations and all these things.
07:28Are you part of this chorus of voices?
07:30Well, definitely, you know, we need to see that Russian provocations or what we call hybrid war.
07:38You know, with provocations or with drones, now all that sabotage on railways, even terroristic, you know, sabotage as it happened in Poland, demands from us much more clear strategy.
07:51How we are reacting.
07:52One thing is, you know, how we are able to defend ourselves against some of those provocations.
07:58For example, it appears that really our capabilities to detect drones when they are flying into our territory or to have cost effective means to destroy them, you know, in quite a deficit at the moment.
08:14So we need to develop those capabilities, technical, technological capabilities, but from another side, we need really to be much more clear on our political reactions.
08:26Because we can just predict that Russia, you know, if we shall not find the ways how to stop them, the Russians will increase those provocations.
08:37You know, they will be happening much more often.
08:40We can imagine that, you know, their volumes will become bigger.
08:46And that is what we really need to have in mind.
08:50And there are, of course, proposals from different member states, from ministers, for example.
08:58Italian defense minister Guido Croseto proposed some kind of interesting paper on hybrid, you know, defense of Europe,
09:07where he is really proposing to be much more proactive in terms of, you know, our reactions to such kind of provocations.
09:14What about the famous drone wall that was being floated a few weeks ago, but now it's ominously quiet around that?
09:23I mean, we're talking about a common border with Russia of 3,000 or something kilometers.
09:28Where do you come down on this? Drone wall, yes or no?
09:31Well, now we change simply the title because we understood that in some countries, this, you know, terminology wall was difficult to understand how you can build drone wall and what does it mean.
09:42So now we call it Drone Defense Initiative and really it, you know, discussions are continuing.
09:50And as we understand very soon, for example, Finland is calling a summit of Eastern flank countries, exactly from Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, where some of those ideas will be discussed.
10:04And so the program of Eastern flank watch, it has inside of the whole plan, very strong element related with drone defense.
10:15And here really we can learn a lot from Ukraine and that is what we are preparing to do.
10:20You have been a warning voice on this matter here for a long time.
10:25Whenever there was a Russian drone incursion, you said something, now we need to act, we're still ill-prepared.
10:31Do you see Europe moving into a common position here, acting and not just talking?
10:40I see really clear movements.
10:43Now we have so-called, you know, Drone Defense Initiative Coalition led by Netherlands and also Latvians and Croatians are leading that coalition.
10:52We had, last week we had a very interesting industrial round table with all the producers of, industrial producers of drones and anti-drone systems.
11:04And now we are coming from next year, from the beginning of next year, we shall have the new industrial program, European defense industry program, EDIP, what we call, with new instruments to assist member states to join themselves into development of some kind of joint projects, regional projects, with European defense projects of common interest.
11:31So then, as we see from national investment plans, which were presented in relation with safe loans also, quite a lot of countries are going to invest those money into development of their drone defense capabilities.
11:46So things are moving. Maybe there is less of visibility, but the real job is really moving ahead.
11:52So drones have been shot down over Denmark, over the Baltics, over Romania, which is not a successful business model for those who dispatch these drones.
12:03But where do you see this going, the drone war? Are these the arms of the future?
12:11Well, what we need to see is that at the moment, really, drones are changing very much warfare doctrines.
12:20And what we have seen, really, from technical point of view, we understood that we have not enough of detection capabilities.
12:30We have no cost effective means to destroy drones.
12:33When you are shooting a drone with a value of 10,000 euros with a missile, which costs 1 million euros, that's not the best way to defend yourself.
12:43And second question, really, what was very clear also, why we as Europeans were not able to prepare ourselves during the last several years when drones on a massive scale started to appear in Ukraine back in 2023.
13:02So it shows that really our way of how we are preparing, how we are able to change our understanding of modern warfare doctrines is, again, not at that level which we need to have.
13:17So that is why we put very recently also communication on so-called defense industry transformation roadmap.
13:27We need to move ahead. That's the major message which we need to understand.
13:31In this context, you have suggested once that Europe should integrate Ukrainian battle-tested drone capabilities. What exactly do you mean by that?
13:42Well, and that is what we are discussing, both with eastern flank countries, from Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and also with Ukrainians, that their knowledge, their experience,
13:53because really we can say that Ukrainians built drone wall, because they are really very effective in defending themselves against hundreds of drones flying each night.
14:05It's very important to learn from Ukrainians what we call ecosystem.
14:09Because what you can see in Ukraine is that drone producers are working together with operators. Operators are working, you know, from Kiev center.
14:17They are managing drones on the front line. They are able to, you know, to have very good digital statistics in order to follow what is happening on the front line.
14:29And definitely they are able to innovate very quickly because what they are saying is that the drone which you are using at the moment in two months' time becomes obsolete because Russians are finding, you know, how to jam or, you know, to destroy those drones.
14:45So those things really, which is not so easy, you know, you cannot procure them very simply. You need to work together with Ukrainians in order to get that knowledge and that experience.
14:57So that is why I'm always repeating that when we are building eastern flank watch, when we want to build and also what we call at the very beginning drone wall, you know, on this border, we need to do that together with Ukrainians and including Ukraine.
15:11And that is what this experience of Ukrainians can then spread into all Europe and that would be beneficial for all of us.
15:18Now, winning a war is all about money, as we have learned many, many times. Of the 19 member states of the EU Security Action for Europe program SAFE, 15 have included support for Ukraine.
15:34How much money are we talking about here?
15:36What are we talking about here?
15:37Well, we shall need to check because now we are reading, you know, those plans. But we are talking here about billions. It's not just millions, you know.
15:46It can be around 5 billion maybe, but we shall know, you know, more precise numbers after we shall check. After we shall, in some cases, we shall need to have conversation with the member states.
15:58So this is important. And it's important that really Ukraine is included into those plans of member states where they are looking for joint procurement together with Ukraine.
16:11Some member states are going to establish joint manufacturing capacities on European Union, in European Union countries, but producing weapons for Ukraine.
16:25So from one side, yes, we are, you know, strengthening our support to Ukraine. From another side, we are learning more and more from Ukraine. And that is where, you know, what I'm calling that. We are helping Ukraine, but also we're asking Ukraine to help us with their knowledge.
16:42Is this going to help Ukraine in the long run, defending the sovereignty of its...
16:47Well, first of all, we need to understand that, you know, the best security guarantee for Ukraine is really their strong army, which we can help them to build.
16:55And that is why we have this porcupine strategy, whatever it's called, you know, and that really Ukrainian defense...
17:04I like this, Mark.
17:05Yeah.
17:06It should be such, you know, that Russians would not even think in the future, you know, to start new aggressions against Ukraine.
17:15And definitely, they are battle-tested armies, they are battle-tested industry, very innovative industry. Also, it's very beneficial for, in looking how we can build and how we can strengthen our own defense capabilities.
17:27So that is why we need to look how we can integrate, you know, those capabilities. And that is our future task.
17:36Commissioner, you're also in charge of space.
17:39Sure.
17:40Amazing.
17:41What are the challenges here for Europe?
17:45Well, you know, first of all, definitely spaces of dual use. And since I am, you know, defense and space commissioner, so we are spending quite a lot of our attention on how to develop those capabilities in space, which are very much needed for defense.
18:06Second, really, we need to see that we are not so bad in space, despite the fact that if you will ask, you know, people on the street, they will say, ah, Elon Musk is, you know, doing everything, Europeans are very much behind.
18:21Yeah.
18:22But we need to remember that, for example, our navigation system, Galileo is the best in the world.
18:27Our observation system is, Copernicus is the best in the world. Now we're building a security light communication system, something like Starlink, so-called Iris Square, and experts are saying that it will be better than Starlink. So that's, well, where we are, you know, behind Elon Musk and where we need to catch up is, of course, our launching capabilities. So that's, well, where we are, you know, behind Elon Musk and where we need to catch up is, of course, our launching capabilities.
18:49So, but we are coming, coming also here with, with new ideas and new developments. What is important really for us when we're talking about, about our space capabilities really to see how important is a modern warfare is space for defense.
19:07We have, you know, we have, you know, intelligence systems, we have secure satellite communication, we have navigation, but what, what is everything is, is, is, is absolutely, you know, this is what we call strategic enablers.
19:19And we need to develop them. So we have new plans, especially, you know, non-intelligence data capabilities, so-called S-observation governmental service, and we're moving, moving ahead. And space is what is important, that in space, we have good experience to build very successful pan-European projects, which is not the case in defense. So we need, in defense, we need to learn a lot from space.
19:45All right, Andreas Koubelius, EU commissioner for defense and space. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.
19:53Thanks a lot.
19:54Great conversation.
19:54Thanks a lot.
19:55Thank you.
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