Remarks by Executive Vice-President Virkkunen, High Representative/Vice-President Kallas, Commissioner Kubilius and Commissioner Tzitzikostas on the defence package

Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen

This morning, the Commission adopted a defence package comprising an EU defence industry transformation roadmap, a joint communication on military mobility, and a proposal for a Regulation to facilitate the transport of military equipment, goods and personnel across the Union.

Starting from the roadmap, it complements the Defence Readiness Roadmap we adopted on 16 October.

Innovation is a critical component of Europe's defence readiness. Disruptive technologies and their fast development, testing and embedding in defence capabilities are essentials of modern warfare.

The war in Ukraine clearly demonstrates how fast defence technologies evolve and how frontier technologies such as AI, quantum, cyber, and space-based systems provide rapid tactical change in the battlefield.

EU needs a fundamental change of mindset at all levels: Member States, industry and EU institutions. We want agility, speed, collaboration and risk-taking become the new normal in defence capability development in Europe.

SMEs, small mid-caps, startups, and scaleups, often with a civilian deep-tech background, have been central to Ukraine's defence capabilities.

The roadmap presents clear steps to accelerate the transformation of the EU defence industry and support new defence players, some coming from civilian and dual-use markets.

We want to bring together the deep tech and defence communities, speed up the use of advanced technologies in military capabilities and boost Europe's production capacity through innovation. 

To achieve this, we focus on four priorities:

• Supporting investment in defence companies;
• Accelerating the development of new technologies;
• Expanding access to defence capabilities; and
• Fostering the skills needed to sustain Europe's technological edge.  

I would also like to mention the EU Defence Innovation Office in Kyiv. We will strengthen its role to become an EU Defence Industry Office, allowing us to learn more and make sure that the European defence industry will gain competitive advantage.

We will immediately start implementing the roadmap's actions to start the transformation of Europe's defence industrial ecosystem and scale up. 

Ladies and gentlemen, military mobility is a top priority for strengthening Europe's defence. And that's why we have also adopted the military mobility package.

Our goal is to create a Military Schengen, where European troops and equipment will move fast and safe across borders.

We will remove regulatory barriers by introducing the first-ever EU-level harmonised rules on military mobility with a maximum three-day processing time and streamlined customs formalities.

We will create an emergency framework: a new European Military Mobility Enhanced Response System (EMERS) for fast-track procedures and priority access to infrastructure, supporting armed forces acting in the context of EU or NATO. 

We will upgrade key EU military mobility corridors to fit the dual-use standards and protect strategic infrastructure with a new resilience toolbox. 

This includes targeted investments that will strengthen cybersecurity, energy security and readiness in both peace and crisis. 

We will introduce a Solidarity Pool and the possibility to create a Military Mobility Digital Information System to enhance preparedness and availability of military mobility capabilities for Member States. 

We will also strengthen coordination between the Member States by a new Military Mobility Transport Group and an enhanced TEN-T Committee. They will guide implementation and monitor readiness.

And before giving the floor to the HR/VP Kallas and Commissioner Tzizikostas to share more insight on military mobility, and Commissioner Kubilius on the defence package, I would like to thank all colleagues for the very close cooperation, and their work and commitment on these key files for our defence.

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High Representative/Vice-President Kaja Kallas

I start with Monday's attack on Polish railway track, which highlights the unprecedented risk to European transport infrastructure. Russia's attacks have become increasingly brazen. Our critical infrastructure needs more protection.  

The fast movement of Europe's militaries is essential for European defence. We have to ensure that forces can be in the right place and at the right time. 

Swift movement depends on many factors: can our roads, tunnels, bridges bear the weight? Are there enough designated routes for the military movements? Do we have enough flatbed rail carriages, and what paperwork do we still have to fill out when you want to cross a border for training, or in case of crisis. 

It is quite simple: the faster we can move forces, the stronger our deterrence and defence. We need to be talking about days, not weeks, to move troops in Europe.  

Some countries still require 45 days' notice before other countries' troops can pass through their for exercises, for example. Eleven years after Russia annexed Crimea, this is simply not good enough.  

The European Defence Agency has already identified the solutions to harmonise border crossing procedures, including customs formalities, and rules on transporting dangerous good. But we need to do more. So today, as Henna already said, we are proposing a range of improvements.

First, we need to reduce administrative barriers. For that, we propose a new EU-wide emergency mechanism that allows member states to relax the rules when armed forces need to be moved rapidly across the borders. We also propose that the national military transport coordinators are assigned in each Member State.

Second funding. The Commission's proposal for the next multi-annual budget foresees €17 billion investment for dual-use transport infrastructure. This goes together with the 1.5% of GDP spending that NATO Allies pledged for security-related investments.  

Investing in infrastructure is crucial. If a bridge cannot carry a 60-ton tank, we have a problem. If a runway is too short for a cargo plane, we cannot resupply our troops. EU military mobility does not duplicate NATO's efforts, on the contrary, it underpins NATO's defence plans. 

As we flagged in the white paper, we also want to extend the military mobility corridors into Ukraine. This would be a security guarantee, meaning we could deliver faster support if needed. 

Military mobility is a critical insurance policy for European security. You hope that you never have to use it to full capacity. But having it ready ensures more credible deterrence and defence.  

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Commissioner Andrius Kubilius

I will start from military mobility. I will try first of all to stress how important it is what we today are proposing.

I can remind you that importance by quoting a famous American General John Pershing, who was leading American troops during the First World War in Europe, and he said, “Infantry wins battles, logistics wins the wars”. So that is what military people are speaking about.

Those words are the best way to describe the significance of the military mobility package which is presented by the Commission.

Definitely, speed is a cornerstone of defence and deterrence. And what Kaja has said about 45 days - that's really what we cannot accept to allow ourselves to have such a luxury. We need to speak about minutes and hours, not weeks and months as till now.

So what we are proposing – to stress some very important points.

Big change that we are coming this time on military mobility with Regulation. Not communication, not plans, but with regulation as a legal instrument, which means that we are harmonising and streamlining military transport rules with a Regulation which moves from 27 national procedures of permits to one single Union procedure and resolving other challenges related to military transportation.

Secondly, we are introducing emergency framework. Different institutions should work during crisis and with automatic permits and priority access to rail and air military transport.

Very important is that we are introducing pooling and sharing capabilities to address the gaps of availability of transport capabilities like wagons, flatbeds, trucks, heavy airlift. The Regulation establishes a Solidarity Pool. The aim is to voluntarily share key dual use mobility capacities. They can be national, public, in advance contracted from civilian transport providers or procured by the Commission. It will be managed using Commission experience in management of assets to mitigate any kind of crisis.

And of course, the fourth is that we are ensuring readiness of dual use infrastructure and its resilience. With the regulation we put forward an obligation and a Resilience toolbox to identify, upgrade, protect and defend strategic dual use infrastructure.

And the last point is we are also Introducing governance and coordinating mechanism with the establishment of a cross-institutional Military Mobility Transport Group and National Coordinators and also reintroducing annual military transport readiness check and stress tests,

And the first one would be the stress test exactly on ensuring fast movements of military assistance towards Ukraine and the Union's Eastern borders. So that is about military mobility.

Now a few words on the Defence Industry Transformation Roadmap.

Transform defence and learn from Ukraine in order to transform – those are two key messages of the Communication.

Transform not only the supply side, which means industry and production, but also the demand side by changing the understanding of modern warfare doctrine and what is needed on the modern battlefield.

Attention should be paid not only to the transformation of technologies, but also to the creation of transformative ecosystems, when research and development and innovation, industrial development and production, military testing and feedback from the front line – everything is acting in the same loop of defence ecosystem.

Again, that is what we need to learn from Ukraine, and disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence quantum are needed for our material defence readiness. That's very clear.

But systemic disruption also is needed in our defence industrial processes (from development to production and procurement) and disruption is needed in industry and government and military relationships.

So the EU Defence Industry Transformation Roadmap sets the conditions for new ways of engaging with the defence industry, with new defence players, and also puts a way how to accelerate its transformation.

Key areas which are covered by 14 concrete actions (I will not go item by item, but I will stress just those key areas):

The first one is supporting the full investment journey of New Defence firms, especially in late stage funding for startups. We have a real problem when 60% of capital for those companies comes from outside of the European Union (especially from the United States), and we are losing those startupers for Europe.

Therefore we are proposing to launch of a defence focused EUR 1 billion fund of funds together with the European Investment Bank, repeating some kind of good experience what we did with similar initiatives a little bit earlier.

Second, what is very important is to accelerate time to market of defence technologies, and that is why we are coming with a new pilot instrument which we call AGILE. It will demand additional regulation later on, which we will present, but we are planning that this new instrument will enable to develop new solutions aligned with military needs within 6 to 12 months. AGILE would be designed to support single-companies to develop low-cost production in a very rapid manner, with lots of iterations with armed forces and something we can call DARPA style.

Third, the other 12 actions are covering the remaining two groups which we can call improving access to contracts and broaden the pipeline of innovative defence solutions. Again, there are very concrete proposals on what we need to do.

The fourth group is ensuring that Europe has the skills and talent to maintain its technological edge, again, looking into the very concrete steps which we need to implement in order to have skills for new defence industrial development.

Transformation in defence is the key and it is the only way towards stronger European defence ecosystems that will ensure credible defence readiness and deterrence ready for the wars of tomorrow.

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Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas

Today's military mobility package marks a decisive step in strengthening Europe's ability to respond to any security crisis or threat, because the time to prepare is not when the crisis hits. It is now.

Solid logistics networks can make the difference between winning and losing wars.

They allow fast and seamless transport of troops and military equipment, across Europe's bridges, tunnels, across our roads and railroads, and through our ports and airports.

Because when you want to defend a continent, you must be able move across it and quickly.

And that's why we are creating this ‘Military Schengen'.

I want to focus on two central aspects: Infrastructure and Regulatory Simplification.

First, infrastructure.

The Commission has been working on military mobility infrastructure since 2017.

And all began with a wake-up call: A NATO military exercise during which a single infrastructure weakness, delayed the movement of equipment and personnel from the North Sea ports to the Eastern flank.

And then it became clear: infrastructure is strategy.

So we built on Europe's biggest transport strength, which is the Trans – European Transport Network, the TEN-T, which is the foundation of military mobility.

And last March, the Council agreed to create four European military mobility corridors across Europe.

At the same time, together with the Member States, NATO and EU military staff, we identified more than 500 hotspots along these four military corridors, priority projects that can deliver quick-win investments in strategic locations.

So we know the hotspots, we know the gaps, we know the stakes, and we are now ready to act.

In most cases, we are upgrading existing infrastructure for both military and civilian use and this is very important.

This means widening tunnels, strengthening bridges, reinforcing railway tracks, expanding port and airport capacity.

And every euro that we invest in dual-use infrastructure because these projects allow dual use.

It is an investment in both our security and our economy.

Our Readiness 2030 agenda, ladies and gentlemen, is very clear: these projects must be completed by the end of this decade.

We estimated that implementing the 500 hotspots will require about €100 billion.

So we need to start investing now.

With the help from SAFE, the Security Action for Europe programme, the Member States can already now support military mobility projects.

They can also use their cohesion policy funds, and this is something the Commission already recognised, by proposing to reshuffle some of the cohesion funds to support military mobility projects.

And after 2028, in the next MFF, the Connecting Europe Facility for military mobility will increase tenfold, to €17 billion.

Finally, the European Competitiveness Fund will also support the resilience and the protection of infrastructure along the military mobility corridors of Europe.   

So today's proposal basically builds on all the work that was done in past years, but adds much more ambition.

Now the Member States have to upgrade the military mobility corridors to meet the military requirements.

Member States must also identify the most strategic dual-use infrastructure projects.

And at the same they must work with a corridor mindset: An upgrade in one Member State should be matched by a similar upgrade in the neighbouring one.

This is how we achieve fast and seamless movement, from one corner of Europe to the other and this is where our coordination role exists as well.

Let me conclude with couple of words on the Regulatory Simplification.

Our goal is clear: We need to unify rules across the Member States, for permissions and customs procedures.

But what does simplification mean in practice?

It means streamlined rules on the transport of dangerous goods, including explosives.

It means allowing heavier and wider vehicles on our roads.

It means allowing military movement on the weekends and on national holidays.  

It means reducing total movement time from weeks or months, which is the case today, to just three days.

In short, it means that military movements cannot and will not be stuck in paperwork.

Our proposal is ambitious, realistic and forward–looking.

Now, we must move from words to actions.

On Monday, we will debate the package with Members of the Parliament.

In the first week of December, we begin discussions with the Member States.

And we must keep the ambition high.

2030 is very close. The threats are real. Our response must be swift. Europe has no time to lose.