European Union weighs creation of air defense shield

COLOGNE, Germany — The European Union is considering setting up its own air defense shield after bloc leaders threw their support behind a Greek-Polish initiative to that effect this week.

The two countries’ prime minsters, Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Donald Tusk, respectively, pitched the idea to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a letter earlier this month.

After von der Leyen, who is eyeing a second term following elections in early June, swiftly endorsed the idea, the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, also signaled support.

“I welcome that member states say that to defend our airspace, why should we look at that in a fragmented manner?” Borrell said ahead of a May 28 meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels.

Borrell told reporters the idea raises plenty of questions. “But the devil is in the details,” he said. “Where will these air defenses be put? At the border? Which border? With which capacities? With which funding?”

In their letter, Mitsotakis and Tusk said they envision “a comprehensive air defense system to protect our common EU airspace against all the incoming threats,” citing Russia’s war against Ukraine as key motivation.

Besides the tangible, military benefits such an endeavor could bring, the two leaders argued that a joint “flagship” program would signal to would-be attackers that the EU is united on defense.

That wording could be seen as a veiled dig at Berlin, where officials are well underway in assembling an air defense coalition under their European Sky Shield Initiative , which now counts 21 member countries. German officials created the initiative in 2022 amid the shock over Russian troops targeting Ukrainian infrastructure and population centers with missiles and drones.

Poland’s Tusk previously said he wants his country to join , but he has faced opposition from the president, Andrzej Duda, who was reelected in 2020 with backing of the then-ruling Law and Justice party.

The project is essentially a European outgrowth of NATO’s air defense architecture, aimed at coordinating national procurements and ensuring interoperability between sensors and interceptors.

But not all EU member states have bought into the idea, partly because the aperture for sourcing the requisite hardware leans heavily on non-European products, including the Israeli-American Arrow 3 missile and the U.S. Patriot system.

The German reaction to the Greek-Polish proposal has been muted, with officials saying they have nothing against it as long it doesn’t interfere with their initiative.

“NATO remains the biggest and most important defense alliance for Europe,” State Secretary Siemtje Möller told reporters ahead of the Foreign Affairs Council meeting this week. She floated the idea of using the bloc’s procurement and funding channels as a feeder mechanism for Germany’s initative.

In the end, the council meeting came and went without any action on the issue, according to officials in Berlin and Brussels. A spokesperson with the German government said the Greek-Polish proposal came up only on the periphery, while an EU spokesperson said formalizing national proposals wasn’t the panel’s job to begin with.

Sebastian Sprenger is associate editor for Europe at Defense News, reporting on the state of the defense market in the region, and on U.S.-Europe cooperation and multi-national investments in defense and global security. Previously he served as managing editor for Defense News. He is based in Cologne, Germany.

德国科隆——本周，欧盟领导人支持希腊和波兰提出的建立自己的防空系统的倡议后，欧盟正在考虑建立自己的防空系统。

两国总理基里亚科斯·米佐塔基斯和唐纳德·图斯克在本月初的一封信中向欧盟委员会主席乌尔苏拉·冯德莱恩提出了这一想法。

在冯德莱恩（她正考虑在 6 月初的选举后连任）迅速表示支持这一想法后，欧盟最高外交官何塞普·博雷尔也表示支持。

博雷利在5月28日布鲁塞尔外交事务委员会会议前夕表示：“我欢迎成员国表示，为了捍卫我们的领空，我们为什么要采取碎片化的方式来看待这个问题？”

博雷尔告诉记者，这个想法引发了很多问题。“但魔鬼藏在细节里，”他说。“这些防空系统将部署在哪里？边境？哪条边境？具备哪些能力？资金从何而来？”

米佐塔基斯和图斯克在信中表示，他们设想建立一个“全面的防空系统，以保护我们共同的欧盟空域免受所有来袭威胁”，并将俄罗斯对乌克兰的战争列为主要动机。

除了这项努力可能带来的切实军事利益之外，两位领导人还认为，联合“旗舰”计划将向潜在的攻击者发出信号，表明欧盟在国防问题上是团结一致的。

这种措辞可能被视为对柏林的隐晦批评。德国官员正在积极筹建“欧洲天空之盾”防空联盟，该联盟目前已有21个成员国。2022年，俄罗斯军队使用导弹和无人机袭击乌克兰基础设施和人口中心，震惊世界，德国官员正是在这种背景下发起了这项倡议。

波兰的图斯克此前曾表示希望波兰加入欧盟，但他遭到了总统安杰伊·杜达的反对。杜达在2020年凭借当时执政的法律与公正党的支持再次当选总统。

该项目本质上是北约防空体系在欧洲的延伸，旨在协调各国采购并确保传感器和拦截器之间的互操作性。

但并非所有欧盟成员国都接受了这一想法，部分原因是采购所需硬件的渠道严重依赖非欧洲产品，包括以色列-美国“箭-3”导弹和美国“爱国者”系统。

德国对希腊和波兰的提议反应冷淡，官员们表示，只要该提议不干扰他们的倡议，他们就不反对。

“北约仍然是欧洲最大、最重要的防务联盟，”德国国务秘书西姆特耶·默勒在本周外交事务委员会会议前对记者表示。她提出利用北约的采购和融资渠道，为德国的倡议提供资金支持。

据柏林和布鲁塞尔的官员称，最终，理事会会议结束，并未就此问题采取任何行动。德国政府发言人表示，希腊-波兰的提案只是被略微提及，而欧盟发言人则表示，正式确定各国提案原本就不是该委员会的职责。

塞巴斯蒂安·斯普伦格是《防务新闻》欧洲版副主编，负责报道该地区的防务市场状况，以及美欧在防务和全球安全领域的合作和多国投资。此前，他曾担任《防务新闻》执行主编。他现居德国科隆。