MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on the white paper on the future of European defence
5.3.2025 - (2025/2565(RSP))
pursuant to Rule 136(2) of the Rules of Procedure
Reinis Pozņaks, Adam Bielan, Rihards Kols, Cristian Terheş, Alberico Gambino, Alexandr Vondra, Aurelijus Veryga, Jadwiga Wiśniewska, Joachim Stanisław Brudziński, Michał Dworczyk, Roberts Zīle, Sebastian Tynkkynen, Bogdan Rzońca, Carlo Fidanza, Ondřej Krutílek, Veronika Vrecionová, Geadis Geadi
on behalf of the ECR Group
See also joint motion for a resolution RC-B10-0146/2025
B10‑0149/2025
European Parliament resolution on the white paper on the future of European defence
The European Parliament,
– having regard to the ‘Strategic Compass for Security and Defence – For a European Union that protects its citizens, values and interests and contributes to international peace and security’, which was approved by the Council on 21 March 2022 and endorsed by the European Council on 25 March 2022,
– having regard to the national security strategies of the Member States,
– having regard to Council Decision (CFSP) 2017/2315 of 11 December 2017 establishing permanent structured cooperation (PESCO) and determining the list of participating Member States[1],
– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2021/697 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2021 establishing the European Defence Fund and repealing Regulation (EU) 2018/1092[2],
– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2023/1525 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 July 2023 on supporting ammunition production (ASAP)[3],
– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2023/2418 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 October 2023 on establishing an instrument for the reinforcement of the European defence industry through common procurement (EDIRPA)[4],
– having regard to European Court of Auditors (ECA) special report 04/2025 of 6 February 2025 entitled ‘EU military mobility – Full speed not reached due to design weaknesses and obstacles en route’[5],
– having regard to the report by Enrico Letta of 18 April 2024 entitled ‘Much more than a market’, and in particular the section ‘Promoting peace and enhancing security: towards a Common Market for the defence industry’,
– having regard to the report by Mario Draghi of 9 September 2024 entitled ‘The future of European competitiveness’, and in particular chapter four thereof, ‘Increasing security and reducing dependencies’,
– having regard to the report by Sauli Niinistö of 30 October 2024 entitled ‘Safer Together – Strengthening Europe’s Civilian and Military Preparedness and Readiness’,
– having regard to the North Atlantic Treaty,
– having regard to the Madrid Summit Declaration issued by NATO heads of state or government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Madrid on 29 June 2022,
– having regard to the NATO 2022 Strategic Concept of 29 June 2022 and the Vilnius Summit Communiqué issued by NATO heads of state and government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Vilnius on 11 July 2023,
– having regard to the three joint declarations on EU-NATO cooperation signed on 8 July 2016, 10 July 2018 and 10 January 2023,
– having regard to the Washington Summit Declaration issued by the NATO heads of state or government participating in the North Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. on 10 July 2024,
– having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,
A. whereas, following the deteriorating geopolitical context and security environment in recent years, the strengthening of European defence, the bolstering of Europe’s operational capabilities and the ramping up of defence production are key initiatives that must be undertaken for ensuring peace, fostering development and strengthening unity between citizens and the Member States, and will contribute decisively to peace on our continent and towards ensuring the long-term security of Ukraine;
B. whereas the recognition that Russia is the most significant threat to Europe’s security for the foreseeable future is paramount, and all Member States must therefore ensure a widespread increase in defence production and operational capabilities in order to ensure that credible deterrence is restored on the European continent, while simultaneously recognising that the instability in the southern neighbourhood must be fully taken into consideration;
C. whereas, in light of the worsening external environment and despite the efforts made in recent years to enhance the EU’s crisis preparedness through new legislation, mechanisms and tools across various policy areas, the EU and its Member States remain vulnerable to multiple crisis scenarios;
D. whereas the Commissioner for Defence and Space, Andrius Kubilius, and the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, have been jointly tasked with producing a white paper on the future of European defence within the first 100 days of the mandate of the new Commission; whereas this paper aims to move from political objectives expressed in general terms to specific and quantifiable objectives, and to constitute an element of defence planning;
E. whereas the timing of the white paper may coincide with a review of the Strategic Compass threat analysis, as well as with possible proposals for a revision of the Strategic Compass, as the majority of its commitments are due for completion by 2025;
F. whereas the white paper’s principal focus must be to outline a clear plan for how the Member States can address and overcome their growing need for greater financial, operational and logistical resources for their national armed forces and intelligence services;
G. whereas the white paper must ensure that an effective and financeable strategy that counters hybrid warfare can be realised, particularly one that counters the ongoing attacks on subsea infrastructure that are essential for global energy transport and digital communications, as approximately 99 % of global data traffic is reliant on undersea fibre-optic cables;
H. whereas the undersea network of the Member States consists of 39 such cables, ensuring connectivity across the Mediterranean, North Sea and Baltic Sea; whereas recent undersea cable disruptions are often dismissed as maritime accidents; whereas emerging technologies and rapid advancements in autonomous underwater drones and deep-sea espionage capabilities create key vulnerabilities that are being exploited by hostile state and non-state actors;
I. whereas the white paper must ensure complementarity with NATO’s Strategic Concept as NATO is and must remain the principal security guarantor for the Euro-Atlantic area;
1. Reiterates its firm support for initiatives aimed at strengthening the European defence and deterrence capacity, addressing hybrid and cyber threats, promoting industrial cooperation in the defence sector, and providing the Member States and their allies with high-quality defence products in the required quantities and at short notice; underlines that these objectives require vision, concreteness and shared commitments, both in the strictly military field and in the industrial, technological and intelligence sectors;
2. Emphasises that the EU must adopt a comprehensive, all-encompassing approach to civilian and military preparedness and readiness, involving both government and society as a whole, as European defence is confronted with increasingly complex challenges that demand a shift in approach, in particular regarding artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity and multi-domain operational strategies; considers the importance of strengthening cooperation with NATO and like-minded countries and engaging with the United States to increase the resilience of the transatlantic relationship;
3. Expects the white paper on the future of European defence to differentiate between short-term and long-term plans and objectives, to predominantly address defence sector capability issues, industrial competitiveness and investment needs, as well as to frame the overall approach to EU defence integration, with the aim of strengthening the Member States’ abilities to respond to threats – particularly in the context of Russia’s continuing war of aggression in Ukraine, combined with evolving geopolitical challenges to Europe’s southern flank, and increased military capabilities of hostile state and non-state actors – reinforce EU-NATO cooperation, ensure more efficient Member State defence spending, improve coordination between the Member States, and strengthen strategic partnerships while prioritising the transatlantic relationship;
4. Underlines that Europe must take on greater responsibility and welcomes the fact that higher Member State investment in defence is already accelerating the consolidation of the EU’s Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB), which includes a number of large multinational companies, mid-caps and over 2 000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); stresses that the different EU initiatives and regulations should work together to incentivise this process, rather than presenting obstacles; underlines the importance of improving coherence and coordination between EU instruments and programmes of common European interest for defence;
5. Reiterates, in this regard, that it will also be important to promptly adopt the European defence industry programme (EDIP), in order to support the European defence industrial strategy (EDIS), adopted in March 2024, which aims to enhance the EU’s defence readiness and specifically its industrial capacity;
6. Encourages the expansion of financial support to future European defence spending initiatives that promote the mass development of operational capabilities and strategic enablers, along with a robust enhancement of civil defence infrastructure to ensure the national resilience of the Member States;
7. Welcomes the announcement of the proposal for the exemption of defence spending from EU limitations on public spending – a first, fundamental step in the right direction;
8. Recalls that on 31 January 2025, 19 of the Member States sent a letter urging the European Investment Bank (EIB) to take a stronger role in financing security and defence, in particular re-evaluating the EIB’s list of excluded activities, increasing funding for defence-related investments and exploring the issuance of ‘defence bonds’;
9. Calls on the EIB to further review its policy on defence investment; welcomes the EIB’s decision to update the definition of eligible dual-use projects, but notes that its lending policy still excludes the financing of ammunition and weapons, as well as equipment or infrastructure exclusively dedicated to military use; underlines that more should be done to enable access to financing and facilitate the de-risking of defence projects across the financial institutions;
10. Urges the Member States to support the establishment of a defence, security and resilience bank to serve as a multilateral lending institution designed to provide low-interest, long-term loans that can support key national security priorities such as rearmament, defence modernisation, rebuilding efforts in Ukraine and the buying back of critical infrastructure currently owned by hostile non-EU countries;
11. Encourages EU defence actions aimed at supporting, initiating and incentivising better Member State coordination as Member States are the principal customers of defence equipment, and stresses that any EU initiative for defence must aim to reach a critical mass of capability development, support an appreciable share of Europe’s overall defence investments and support its defence industrial tools with financial means that have a structural effect, without coming at the expense of national defence spending;
12. Encourages the Member States to promote cooperation between different European defence firms to encourage the combining of resources and competencies, in order to spur innovation and the development of modern military equipment;
13. Considers that the strategic environments in which many EU common security and defence policy (CSDP) missions are present are radically deteriorating, with an ongoing war of aggression by Russia in Ukraine and its spillover effect into Moldova and the South Caucasus, a wave of coup d’états in the Sahel region and renewed terrorist campaigns in Somalia and Mozambique, all of which demonstrate the need for the white paper to ensure flexibility in a 360 degree approach to European security that strives towards building a credible and capable deterrence capacity for the Member States, and ensures that Member State civilian and military personnel can deter and respond rapidly to the growing threat environment;
14. Recognises that the current geopolitical paradigm is the result of decades of underinvestment in European security and over-reliance on allies and partners; considers it a key priority of the white paper to outline an actionable plan to revitalise and advance deterrence along the periphery of Europe with a combination of joint civilian and military training missions that specialise in combined arms training, counter-unmanned aerial vehicle (C-UAV) and counter-improvised explosive device (C-IED) capabilities, and enhance interoperability and interchangeability among the Member States and non-EU countries;
15. Calls for the white paper to ensure that the CSDP’s access to planning, resources and logistics is utilised in a manner that permits the CSDP to become the primary enabler of civilian crisis management during emergencies, and can be used as a practice hub for societal resilience and recovery in the face of both human-induced and natural disasters;
16. Stresses that the white paper should promote close coordination between the EU and NATO to aid our collective defence and deterrence efforts, as well as the alliance’s effort to promote cooperative security through defence capacity-building and its open door policy;
17. Calls for the white paper to outline how the EU and NATO should collaborate on building an integrated approach to the Black Sea, with a view to strengthening partnership in the areas of security, energy and connectivity; calls for the EU to redouble joint efforts by the EU and NATO to strengthen the deterrence and resilience of the Eastern Partnership countries by developing maritime defence capabilities, enhancing maritime interoperability, providing capabilities to deter and defend against cyber intrusions and attacks, expanding intelligence-sharing and maintaining modern outfitting of national armed forces;
18. Highlights that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and Iran’s aggression against Israel have demonstrated the use of drones at an unprecedented scale in modern warfare, urges the Member States to utilise the European Peace Facility, Permanent Structured Cooperation, the European Defence Agency and other available and future instruments to ensure that investment, development and joint procurement of counter unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS) and airborne electronic attack (AEA) equipment are prioritised, and to integrate C-UAS and AEA into the strategic doctrine of CSDP military training missions;
19. Concurs with the ambition of enhancing the European pillar within NATO, with a view to augmenting strategic complementarity, by increasing the amount and range of NATO advanced training courses between European allies and partners to ensure that the Member States close the gap with the United States in operational capabilities and effectiveness; stresses that the development of EU operational capabilities can go hand in hand with the deepening of EU-NATO cooperation;
20. Emphasises that the rise of asymmetric transnational threats has increasingly blurred the distinction between external and internal security, as well as between military and non-military security, and that this shifting landscape necessitates a comprehensive and adaptive approach to security at EU level; underlines that the Member States’ increases in defence spending should be complementary to the EU’s overall security strategy, which must evolve in response to changes in the strategic environment;
21. Recognises that NATO and leading allies such as the United States and the United Kingdom are playing a crucial role in coordinating and leading the efforts to support Ukraine militarily not only with weapons, ammunition and equipment, but also intelligence and data; considers Russia’s ongoing war of aggression as further evidence that the most important countries for European security remain the United States and United Kingdom, as the war continues to reveal profound structural faults in EU security and defence architecture and unacceptable shortfalls in its capabilities;
22. Highlights the need to ensure the security of the Black Sea region by assisting in the demining of Ukraine’s seawaters and to encourage the Member States to offer joint training exercises in this regard, with an emphasis on the development of maritime mine counter measure capabilities and critical seabed infrastructure protection;
23. Underlines the importance of undersea cables and in this regard expresses worry about the recent series of cable disruptions in the Baltic Sea, which raise concerns about hybrid warfare tactics, particularly plausible deniability in state-sponsored sabotage; recalls that Russia’s increased naval presence, also through its shadow fleet, in European waters, highlights the vulnerabilities of seabed infrastructure; stresses the need to expand NATO and EU naval coordination for Baltic Sea patrols, enhance surveillance and defensive capabilities, increase investment in undersea surveillance technologies and strengthen partnerships with private telecom and energy companies for real-time monitoring of undersea threats;
24. Encourages the Member States to provide specialised opportunities for SMEs in the European defence sector so they have the capacity to participate in the bidding process via measures such as creating a pre-approved list of companies to facilitate a speedier engagement process, introducing private equity firms that invest in SMEs into the procurement process, assisting SME growth through incubation and capital investment, reducing the complexities of bidding for contracts, and devising an internal effort to reform the amount of time taken to address contract details;
25. Encourages the Member States to support binding commitments in their defence budgets that ensure a minimum expenditure in the field of research and development spending, in order to ensure that SME engagement and a spillover effect into the civilian marketplace can be tangibly supported;
26. Emphasises that the Member States’ ambitions to achieve defence readiness should also be advanced through partnerships and prioritise, where possible, the integration of the Ukrainian Defence Technological and Industrial Base into the wider European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB) and transatlantic defence technological and industrial cooperation, with a particular emphasis on joint drone and munitions development;
27. Encourages initiatives such as the EU’s Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP) to serve as a standard for advancing the much-needed increase in munitions and capabilities required for our armed forces, using ASAP as a basis for combining credible and effective multi-domain conventional force capabilities, missile defences, space support, drone development and various other key capabilities as outlined in the EDA’s Capability Development Plan;
28. Stresses that the white paper must include an outline of institutional reforms that reinforce changes in procurement regulations and intellectual property frameworks, as well as leveraging tax incentives to promote defence-related innovation; emphasises that any such changes must be designed to ensure speed and efficiency within the procurement process and management life cycle of Member State weapons systems;
29. Encourages speedy financing for enhancing military mobility in a manner that guarantees the upgrading of infrastructure for dual-use military and civilian purposes, contributes to the EU’s defence capabilities and realises a fully operational military Schengen area; underlines that such investments offer significant economic and security benefits; calls on the Commission to act on the recommendations of the 2025 ECA special report on military mobility and to give greater importance to the military assessment during the selection process for dual-use projects;
30. Stresses that military mobility requires the elimination of regulatory bottlenecks that hinder the delivery of capabilities and limit the investment required to modernise defence capabilities and improve military mobility; emphasises, therefore, that the removal of obstacles, implementation of flow-monitoring and optimisation of systems for addressing cross-border threats are crucial and must be reflected in the white paper;
31. Urges the Commission to consider financing that ensures that anti-access/area denial capabilities and civil-military fusion are prioritised within any infrastructure development objectives, particularly along the eastern flank;
32. Supports initiatives for industrial reinforcement actions that benefit SMEs or mid-caps, demonstrate a contribution to the creation of new forms of cross-border cooperation or involve the creation of new infrastructure, facilities or production lines, or the establishment of new or the ramping-up of existing manufacturing capacities of crisis-relevant products;
33. Encourages the Member States to prioritise the pre-deployment of personnel and capabilities in support of the eastern flank, combined with a follow-on forces and rapid deployment capability that ensures effective border security and deterrence against both hybrid warfare and Russian military manoeuvres;
34. Underlines the Arctic’s strategic importance within the EU’s defence framework, underscoring the need for strengthened deterrence and defence capabilities in close coordination with NATO; emphasises that this cooperation is essential to address the intensifying militarisation and resource competition operated by Russian and Chinese activities in the region, and to counterbalance their expanding influence and military presence;
35. Encourages the Member States to ensure closer synergies with national joint training and evaluation centres in Eastern Partnership countries, while also ensuring that there is widespread Member State representation in CSDP missions throughout the Eastern Partnership region, and to encourage greater participation of non-EU countries in these missions, particularly non-EU countries that have hosted successfully completed CSDP missions;
36. Considers outer space to be an increasingly contested area, with the weaponisation of space on the rise, space security becoming an ever more critical and contested issue, and a growing rush to militarise space infrastructure; highlights the need to prioritise the defence and security of space as a critical part of Europe’s defence, and underscores the importance of securing Europe’s space capabilities and infrastructure, both on land and in orbit, to ensure continuous, secure access to data and communications;
37. Recognises the important role that emerging disruptive technologies such as quantum computing and AI will play in our future relations with Russia and China, and calls for increasing Europe’s resilience to emerging disruptive technologies in all CSDP missions and operations;
38. Considers that hybrid threats in the years to come will see the systematic combination of information warfare, agile combat manoeuvres, mass cyber warfare and emerging and disruptive technologies from seabed to space, with both advanced air-breathing and space-based surveillance and strike systems deployed, all of which will be enabled by advanced AI, quantum computing, increasingly ‘intelligent’ drone swarm technologies, offensive cyber capabilities, hypersonic missile systems, and nanotech and bio-warfare;
39. Underlines the importance of civil defence and preparedness in the medium and long term, including the need to establish adequate civil protection infrastructure and planning for emergency situations; calls for the EU, its Member States and local governments to ensure the necessary investments for those purposes and a dedicated investment guarantee programme within the EIB for crisis-proofing and civil defence infrastructure;
40. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the European Council, the Council, the Commission, in particular the President of the Commission, the Commissioner for Defence and Space and the other competent Commissioners, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the UN Secretary-General, the NATO Secretary General, the President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the EU security and defence agencies and the governments and parliaments of the Member States and partner countries.
- [1] OJ L 331, 14.12.2017, p. 57, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dec/2017/2315/oj.
- [2] OJ L 170, 12.5.2021, p. 149, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2021/697/oj.
- [3] OJ L 185, 24.7.2023, p. 7, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1525/oj.
- [4] OJ L, 2023/2418, 26.10.2023, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/2418/oj.
- [5] OJ C, C/2025/815, 6.2.2025, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/815/oj.