The President of the European Commission has spoken in dramatic tones regarding recent incidents of drone flights over European airports that have led authorities to resort to a temporary lockdown.

Ursula von der Leyen was at the European Parliament’s plenary session in Strasbourg where she presented the Commission’s plan to secure Europe against what she described as a hybrid war in progress.

“Something new and dangerous is happening in our skies; in just the last two weeks, MiG fighters have violated Estonian airspace and drones have flown over critical locations in Belgium, Poland, Romania, Denmark and Germany {…}Make no mistake, this is part of a worrying pattern of growing threats across our Union. Undersea cables have been cut. Airports and logistics hubs have been paralysed by cyber-attacks and elections are being targeted by a campaign of malign influence. This is not random harassment. It is a coherent and escalating campaign to upset our citizens, test our resolve, divide our union and weaken our support for Ukraine, and it is time to call a spade a spade. This is a hybrid war and we must take it very seriously,” said President von der Leyen.

According to the Commission President herself, “the founding mission of the European Union is peacekeeping, and today that means having the capacity to deter aggression and provocation, and Europe urgently needs to equip itself with a strategic response capacity, a capacity that is ready to deal with the changing nature of war. We must develop and maintain it together, and we must be able to respond in real time.The work has already begun. We are seeing the largest increase in defence spending in the history of the Union. Now we need a precise pan-European plan, coordinated very closely with NATO, on how to move forward. And we will soon present, in fact, in two weeks, we will present our roadmap of preparedness, 2030, which we call peacekeeping.”

As President von der Leyen said, the first point deals specifically with violations of EU airspace, calling for a new pan-European flagship, namely the surveillance of the eastern side of Europe with an anti-drone wall. We need an anti-drone system that is affordable and fit for purpose, for rapid detection, rapid interception and, when necessary, rapid neutralisation

“The anti-drone wall will contribute to the east side; it will monitor and protect the skies, seas and terrain of our eastern members.

But it’s not just about our eastern border. Right now, it’s our priority, but what we need is a 360-degree approach. This anti-drone system will be a shield for our entire union, including, of course, the south side, and it should be designed to address a wide range of challenges, from responding to natural disasters to countering international organized crime, from tracking armed migration to controlling the Russian shadow fleet, and the list is long, autonomous systems are at the heart of 21st century security, and Europe must be at the cutting edge.”