The European Union will present next Thursday its 2030 roadmap for "preserving peace and Defense preparedness," a document whose draft has been accessed by EL MUNDO and includes a detailed explanation of the future anti-drone wall that has become a priority. The document indicates that, obviously, the system will be a way to address the increasingly recurrent provocations and violations by Russia. It will have "interoperable capabilities for drone detection, tracking, and neutralization, as well as capabilities to attack ground targets using drone technology for precision attacks," the document states.
It will also be a system "fully interoperable and connected among the member States" and "with the ability to act jointly to protect critical infrastructures along with NATO." With a 360º approach, the text continues, something that Spain and Italy have particularly demanded, which is essentially a way of saying that it will serve for the protection of the entire EU. However, at the same time, the Brussels text emphasizes that the priority is the Eastern border. Here, three points stand out.
The first is that the drone wall will not essentially be just a passive defense but will adapt to other threats beyond those coming from the borders of Russia and Belarus, similar to the ones launched last September with the incursion of over 20 drones of a certain size into Polish airspace. It is a "flexible, agile, and cutting-edge" initiative, as the text defines it, to "counter drone threats in all areas of European territory."
In the genesis of the plan, the recent incidents in the Baltic seem to be taken into account, involving in one way or another some ships from the so-called "Russian ghost fleet" of tankers and freighters, which according to authorities from countries like Denmark, have been used to launch drones towards EU airports, causing significant disruption in air traffic. The document ensures that these resources will monitor "hybrid operations, drone incursions, Russia's shadow fleet, and the risk of armed aggression."
The project aims to protect "the entire European continent" and makes special mention of "maritime security measures in the Baltic and Black Sea," all coordinated by the NATO headquarters.
Secondly, it is interesting to note the reference to Ukraine as a leading country in the development of this technology as a weapon of war to confront a theoretically much more powerful army. "Europe now has the opportunity to learn from the Ukrainian model of rapid military technological innovation, closely related to the European Drone Alliance proposal with Ukraine."
Hundreds of small start-ups in Kiev have launched a technological race against their Russian enemies to improve every few days, always in connection with their own soldiers on the front lines, the thousands of drones used daily for surveillance, attacks, demining, evacuating the wounded, and delivering ammunition and food to the most remote positions. European armies are far from having these capabilities today.
If months ago it was the Russian fiber optic drones that revolutionized the battlefield, as they could not be taken down with electronic warfare, now the Ukrainians have created four-channel drones, unmanned devices that receive orders from the pilot through four radio frequencies simultaneously. Russian electronic warfare may eliminate one or even several at a time, but not all four, so the drone will continue flying towards its target.
As a third point of interest, the document also mentions "dual uses, such as border protection, the instrumentalization of migration, protection of critical infrastructures, and combating transnational organized crime." In the recent past, the EU has experienced several border invasions using immigration as a weapon against a Member State: for example, Morocco blatantly provoked the arrival of thousands of teenagers in Ceuta in 2021, just as Aleksandr Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus, did against Poland using immigrants from the Middle East, driven ad hoc towards the EU border. According to the document, this anti-drone wall should monitor each of the borders, also to prevent criminal activities such as drug trafficking or human trafficking.
Finally, the text provides an estimate of the dates when the different steps for implementing the wall will be approved and taken. Beyond the proposal presentation, the first step is for the European Council to approve the Eastern Flank Surveillance program in which the drone wall is framed. This, according to Brussels, will be before the end of 2025. What is referred to as the "initial capability" of the drone wall will be reached by the end of next year, in 2026, and before the end of 2027, it should be "fully operational".