Modern wars consume drones at a much higher rate than traditional ammunition. Ukraine uses approximately 9.000 drones per day, roughly 270.000 units monthly. Estimates suggest that Iran can produce approximately 400 Shahed drones per day, for a monthly capacity of up to 12.000 units.

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This staggering churn is pushing the EU towards mass-scale industrial production, as existing drone stockpiles and manual manufacturing cannot keep pace with battlefield losses.

The bloc’s inability to scale production is creating a strategic dependency on external suppliers like the US or China, leaving its borders vulnerable to disposable, “cheap” warfare that the current industrial pace cannot sustain.

To counter this vulnerability, the EU has launched the 2026 European Drone Defence Initiative (EDDI), to build a multi-layered, 360-degree shield of interoperable counter-drone systems by 2027.

Complementing the EDDI is the Drone Alliance with Ukraine, which leverages battlefield-tested expertise to co-produce millions of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Utmost strategic importance

Drones went from niche tools to key war instruments because of three advantages: low cost, constant surveillance, and precision strike capability.

In Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both sides rely on drones for reconnaissance and targeting. Commercial quadcopters, which can cost just a few hundred euros, spot enemy positions and guide artillery in real time. This shortens the time between detection and destruction from hours to minutes. Larger systems, such as Turkey’s Bayraktar TB2, were used to destroy supply convoys and air defence systems early in the conflict, which set a new international war standard.

“Drones evolve technologically every three to six months. So, it’s also challenging to buy millions of drones that will be obsolete in 12 months from now”, shared Nikolaus Lang, Global Leader at BCG Henderson Institute.

Drones are cheap to produce, but expensive to defend against. In traditional wars, destroying a target required expensive aircraft or missiles, until Ukraine showed that today, a cheap “kamikaze” drone can destroy equipment worth millions.

Russia used many Iranian Shahed drones, each relatively inexpensive, to strike Ukrainian infrastructure. But defending against them requires pricey air-defence missiles or fighter jets, which creates a strategic imbalance where the defender spends far more than the attacker.

“Europe needs cheaper and quicker solutions”, said Jamie Shea, former NATO official, Senior Fellow at Friends of Europe and Senior Advisor at the European Policy Centre in Brussels. “The EU uses very expensive means to neutralise drones. You’ve seen in Iran, where $3 million missiles are used to shoot down drones of just a couple of thousand dollars”, he said.

Military analysts from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies describe drones as one of the most disruptive economic shifts in warfare in decades.

Drones also democratise air power. In earlier conflicts, only advanced dominated the air, but this changed during the Nagorno-Karabakh War as Azerbaijani forces used drones to systematically destroy Armenian tanks and artillery.

In the Gaza Strip, both state forces and non-state actors use modified commercial drones for surveillance and attacks. Now even relatively small or poorly equipped groups can carry out aerial operations, which lowers the barrier for effective military force.

Europe falls behind

For Europe, urgency stems from external threats and internal weaknesses. Drone incidents near critical infrastructure quadrupled between 2024 and 2025. In September, Copenhagen and Oslo closed airports after “several large drones” caused 109 cancellations and 51 reroutes. A month later, Munich Airport closed twice in 24 hours for the same reason.

The strategic concern is that the EU is not yet structured for a “drone-saturated” battlefield or security environment. Recent incidents forced costly responses: for example, in September of 2025, approximately 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, so NATO deployed F-35 fighter jets to neutralize the threat, which cost at least €1.2 million.

To avoid this, Shea explained that the EU should develop advanced sensor technology, including a 360-degree sensor aperture that shoots down malicious drones.

Ramping up production

The EU supplies less than 30 per cent of its own military drone needs. By comparison, China and Ukraine produce millions of units annually, while the US is scaling up to hundreds of thousands.

To address this, the Commission launched an industrial push to fundamentally restructure drone design, production, and deployment. The goal is scale: faster production cycles, higher volumes, and lower costs, because modern drone warfare is less about sophistication and more about quick, adaptable mass production.

Traditional European defence procurement is slow, often taking years from concept to deployment. This approach seeks to shorten timelines through modular designs, faster testing, and continuous upgrades, enabling rapid drone adaptation. So, the Commission introduced AGILE (fast-track funding), the EU Defence Innovation Scheme, and BraveTech EU.

Low-cost production is another pillar, with initiatives focused on affordability, scalability, and dual-use manufacturing. The EU is engaging civilian industries (e.g., automotive, electronics) and SMEs, which are more agile than large contractors and better suited to rapid prototyping and innovation. Funding tools will support efforts across member states.

Europe has massively levelled up its defence R&D investments, but it’s still not enough, according to Lang. He pointed out that the “US invested more than $900 billion, Europe only $450 billion altogether”.

The EU will also rely on the Drone Alliance with Ukraine; a 2024 multinational military partnership created to secure Ukraine’s UAV supply through constant deliveries of drones tailored to frontline requirements.

The Alliance allowed the EU to establish a network of factories for Ukrainian-designed drones on European soil. So European firms can bypass traditional bureaucracy by testing new prototypes on the front lines in weeks rather than years.

The alliance is boosted by billions from frozen Russian assets, specifically set to scale up production of low-cost autonomous systems. This collaboration wants to deliver over two million drones annually by 2030.

These initiatives should reduce dependence on non-European suppliers, alongside efforts to secure supply chains for critical drone components (like semiconductors, sensors, and communication systems) within EU borders and among trusted partners.

A key tool is the planned “EU trusted drone” label, to certify systems that meet security and reliability standards. It’s designed to guide procurement decisions, encourage the use of European-made technologies, and ultimately create a more self-sufficient and resilient drone ecosystem.

EU policy meets military drones

Russia’s violation of NATO airspace (37 times since 2022) and the war in Iran pushed the EU to start redefining its defence strategy, shifting from civil drone regulation to security measures and funding initiatives.

The Commission’s 2026 Action Plan on Drone and Counter-Drone Security addresses the use of drones in conflicts that target critical infrastructure, borders, and airspace. It targets the EU’s real-time detection capacities and develops a unified defence approach against malicious operations.

It also boosts member states’ industrial cooperation and drone markets to reduce dependence on non-EU suppliers. Investing in the small niche companies, where innovation lies, is key. “Europe needs to create greater risk, expand our venture capital market, and simplify procurement regulatory barriers”, Shea argued.

The roadmap focuses on four priorities: boosting resilience through industrial ramp-up, improving threat detection through stronger surveillance, responding and defending with a coordinated strategy, and strengthening the EU’s defence readiness.

Detecting and tracking threats requires advanced AI-powered technological infrastructure. The Commission foresees accelerating technological development by using 5G networks to improve real-time threat detection.

The action plan is strong as “it identifies the problem and mobilises resources”, Shea said. Yet the EU needs to learn from Ukraine’s drone strategy: “Ukraine is doing 50 per cent of the work for us. It’s developing the intelligence and offering to share sensitive data. It’s also showing Europe how AI should be integrated into counter-drone technology”.

The EDDI is a key part of the action plan, and it acts as a shield for the bloc’s airspace. Through its multi-layered, interoperable system, the initiative detects, tracks and defends the EU from hybrid threats and drone incursions.

Running on AI-powered sensing and counter-drone technologies, the EDDI supports the Eastern Flank Watch, which is also part of the Commission’s Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030. It is an EU-NATO initiative to protect the EU’s border with Russia and Belarus, using specialised counter-drone technologies and boosting air defence, surveillance, and rapid threat response while improving cooperation with NATO operations, such as Eastern Sentry and Baltic Air Policing.

Security and defence remain national

Though the EU is shifting towards scalable, networked, AI-driven, and mass-produced warfare equipment, defence and security remain national, meaning that member states have individual defence priorities and budgets. Fragmented national procurement practices, critical infrastructure protection, and different rules governing drone and counter-drone systems obstruct Europe’s new defence strategy.

Shea warned that Europe should establish a common legal framework so that all member states can develop and test drone technology equally.

“European states need to monitor the same airspace all the time, so that somebody in France is looking at the same air picture as somebody in Poland or Estonia”, he underlined.

Another issue? Fragmented national investments in drone innovation. “Some countries, like Denmark or Germany, have been much more upfront than others, also in forming joint ventures with Ukrainian manufacturers”, Shea said.

Likewise, 80 per cent of EU procurement is at national level. “We need many more of these initiatives to overcome the fragmentation of defence procurement”, warned Lang.

According to Shea, the EU should also eliminate bureaucratic obstacles to enable sensitive information sharing, such as drone threat intelligence and airspace monitoring, between member states.

“Drones are getting faster and sharing information is fundamental, but the EU needs to ensure safe security protocols to encourage countries to share data”.