Brussels 19.06.2026 In the face of serious security threats and challenges and with Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine remaining an existential challenge for the European Union, Europe’s defence readiness must be decisively ramped up by 2030. Building on recent progress, the European Council calls for efforts to be stepped up, with renewed urgency, to deliver at pace and at scale on this objective, reduce strategic dependencies and address critical capability gaps, with a 360° approach.
We have just concluded a European Council that moved the EU forward in unity on some of our main priorities: the next long-term EU budget, fair global economic competition and our continued support to Ukraine. https://t.co/9yMvCcpgA9
— António Costa (@eucopresident) June 19, 2026
Following the repeated violations of Member States’ airspace, the European Council stresses the importance of ensuring the defence of all EU land, air and maritime borders. In particular, the European Union strongly condemns the grave incident of 29 May 2026 in which a Russian drone carrying explosives crashed into a residential building in Romania, and recognises the immediate threats on the EU’s Eastern flank. The European Union expresses its full solidarity with Romania and all Member States affected by similar incidents. Building on the progress achieved, the European Council calls for an acceleration of efforts to strengthen protection against such threats, including the ongoing work on the ‘Eastern Flank Watch’ project and other initiatives that will contribute to the protection of all EU borders.
❗NOW AVAILABLE – European Council conclusions on Ukraine and on European defence and security
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— EU Council Press (@EUCouncilPress) June 18, 2026
The European Council also condemns all recent hybrid attacks against the European Union and its Member States. In light of the persistent hybrid campaigns by hostile actors, notably Russia and Belarus, the European Council calls for increased and urgent efforts to strengthen resilience, enhance preparedness, protect critical infrastructure, and prevent, deter and respond to hybrid attacks. It welcomes in this context the work conducted in the Council on the Action Plan on Drone and Counter-Drone Security, that contributes to these objectives and complements ongoing efforts in the field of defence.
The European Council recalls that a stronger and more capable European Union in the field of security and defence will contribute positively to global and transatlantic security and is complementary to NATO, which remains, for those States that are members of it, the foundation of their collective defence. The European Council underlines the importance of working together with like-minded partners, who share the EU’s foreign and security policy goals.
Recalling its previous conclusions, the European Council:
a) welcomes the sizeable and ongoing increase in defence expenditure in Member States, that needs to be accompanied by reinforced efforts to invest better and faster together;
b) welcomes progress in all priority capability areas, which have been identified at EU level in full coherence with NATO, and in particular regarding projects in the area of drone and counter-drone systems; early-warning, air defence, and deep precision strike capabilities; and space assets and services. It calls on Member States to resolutely accelerate work in all capability coalitions. It invites the European Defence Agency (EDA) to continue supporting Member States in coordinating the various work strands on capabilities;
c) reiterates the urgent need to strengthen the European defence technological and industrial base so that it can supply the required equipment at the necessary speed and scale, including the priority equipment in support of Ukraine. Further efforts are needed at all levels to adapt and ramp up production capacities and deliver, through research, new technologies and innovation, the defence industrial transformation necessary to meet the defence readiness objective. The European Council calls on the Member States to strengthen their engagement with the defence industry to that end and, in particular, to ensure close alignment between the capability and industrial dimensions in the work of capability coalitions, with the support of the EDA and, as regards the industrial dimension, the Commission;
d) reiterates the importance of the proper functioning and further integration of the European defence market across the Union, including intra-EU cross-border access to defence supply chains, especially for SMEs and mid-caps. The European Council recalls that the decision to authorise or deny the export of defence-related products is at the discretion of each Member State;
e) underlines that Europe must continue to draw lessons from Ukraine’s experience with new technologies, apply them in innovation and capability development processes, and work with the Ukrainian industry, including in the capability coalitions. It welcomes the initiatives recently undertaken in that regard;
f) calls on the Commission, the Council and the Member States to make full use of available instruments regarding capability development as well as industrial reinforcement, and to take the further steps needed in the implementation of the SAFE and European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP) instruments as a matter of urgency. In this regard, the European Council underlines the importance of rapidly finalising work on the European Defence Projects of Common Interest, that will contribute to the defence readiness of all Member States;
g) welcomes the political agreement on the Defence Readiness Omnibus and calls on the co-legislators to agree by the end of 2026 on:
i) the Programme for agile and rapid defence innovation; and
ii) the military mobility proposal;
h) looks forward to the additional proposals announced by the Commission on defence and sensitive security procurement;
i) welcomes the first steps taken in the framework of the EDA to strengthen its support for Member States in the fields of innovation, capability development, including through harmonisation of requirements and aggregation of demand, and common procurement. It invites the EDA and Member States to pursue this work swiftly;
j) invites the European Investment Bank to continue to support defence readiness, in particular by strengthening the European defence industry, including by crowding in private investment.
The above is without prejudice to the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States, and takes into account the security and defence interests of all Member States, in accordance with the Treaties.
The European Council will return to these issues in October 2026, including on the basis of the annual defence readiness report, to be prepared by the EDA with the support of the Commission and the High Representative.
