The informal European Council summit held in Copenhagen on October 1, 2025, marked a significant inflection point in the European Union’s (EU) evolving approach to defense and security policy. Hosted in Copenhagen by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and chaired by European Council President António Costa, the meeting took place under unprecedented security measures.
The decision to close Danish airspace and deploy anti-drone systems reflected both the heightened perception of threat and the symbolic gravity of the moment. The informal summit in Copenhagen brought together the heads of state or government of the 27 EU member countries. The summit occurred just days after a series of Russian airspace violations, including drone incursions into Poland, Estonia and Denmark, which triggered NATO interceptions and renewed concerns about the vulnerability of Europe’s skies. Although Moscow denied involvement, European officials viewed these incidents as deliberate acts of intimidation aimed at testing the EU’s defensive readiness and political cohesion. “We are worried – I am very worried – and now is the time to take action,” warned Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, echoing a sentiment shared widely among Eastern and Northern European leaders.
The Copenhagen meeting unfolded amid a climate of acute insecurity. Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, hybrid operations targeting European infrastructure and the proliferation of cheap drone technologies have exposed the structural fragility of Europe’s defense posture. Since 2022, the EU and its member states have made available around 173.5 billion euros in support to Ukraine. Yet, as Russia adapts to Western sanctions and embraces asymmetric tactics, European policymakers have come to recognize that reactive, and ad hoc measures are insufficient to guarantee long-term security.
European leaders aim to initiate a broad transition from dependency to capability-building — a recognition that the continent’s security cannot indefinitely rest on US guarantees, especially amid growing uncertainty over the Trump administration’s foreign policy priorities and NATO’s expanding strategic scope beyond Europe.
At the core of the summit’s agenda was the review of progress toward the EU’s “Readiness 2030” objectives — nine priority domains identified by the European Council in March 2025 as critical for collective defense. These encompass air and missile defense, artillery and ammunition production, drone and counter-drone capacities, cyber resilience, military mobility, logistics and command structures.
Participants acknowledged persistent gaps, including fragmented procurement practices and excessive dependence on non-European suppliers. However, several incremental advances were noted, notably through the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument launched earlier this year. SAFE mobilizes up to 150 billion euros in loans and guarantees for joint defense projects designed to improve interoperability and stimulate industrial cooperation. Costa urged that defense ministers assume a more operational role, with quarterly monitoring of milestones ahead of the next formal European Council meeting scheduled for October 23 – October 24, designated as “decision time” for finalizing funding mechanisms and Ukraine-related measures.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sought to give substance to the 2030 roadmap by unveiling four flagship defense initiatives aimed at transforming the EU’s capacity for deterrence and rapid response. The first is the European Drone Wall, a multilayered detection and interception system extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea, designed to neutralize unmanned aerial threats in real time. The EU has proposed a program called Eastern Flank Watch, in which the drone wall forms a central component. According to official statements, the initiative is expected to include a space-based surveillance segment aimed at enhancing strategic situational awareness along the EU’s and NATO’s eastern borders. Moreover, led by Germany, the European Sky Shield Initiative aims to enhance Europe’s collective air and missile defense capabilities through coordinated acquisition and interoperability of air defense assets across participating states. Finally, the Defense Space Shield aims to ensure that European states remain competitive in space domain awareness, particularly in monitoring and responding to potential threats.
These initiatives, endorsed in principle by most participants, embody the EU’s ambition to move from declaratory “strategic autonomy” to practical capability-building. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, present at the European Political Community forum, described the drone wall initiative as “timely and necessary,” emphasizing its complementarity with NATO deterrence efforts.
Despite broad convergence on the diagnosis, divisions persist regarding implementation and governance. French President Emmanuel Macron questioned the technical scope of the drone wall, calling instead for greater investment in long-range deterrence and high-end strike capabilities. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz criticized what he described as “Brussels’ overregulation” of defense procurement, while Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned that excessive focus on the eastern flank could marginalize the Mediterranean dimension of European security.
From a policy perspective, the Copenhagen summit signaled gradual movement toward what some officials now describe as a “European Defense Union.” The March 2025 White Paper on Readiness 2030 laid the intellectual foundations by identifying critical capability gaps and proposing 1.5 billion euros for the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP). To operationalize this vision, the Commission advocates fiscal flexibility — allowing temporary deficit increases for defense spending — and streamlined procurement through the European Defense Fund. Enhanced military mobility, through upgraded rail and road corridors, has emerged as a priority to enable rapid deployment of forces across the continent — a weakness exposed in NATO exercises such as Steadfast Defender. Simultaneously, the expansion of the NIS2 Directive is expected to reinforce cyber resilience, protecting critical infrastructure from hybrid attacks.
In strategic terms, Copenhagen did not deliver breakthroughs so much as it crystallized a shared awareness that Europe’s security environment has entered a new phase. The summit reaffirmed that the EU’s survival as a geopolitical actor depends on its ability to integrate industrial, financial and military instruments into a coherent defense architecture. As Prime Minister Frederiksen concluded, there is a need “to make Europe so strong that war against us is no longer an option; we have to build a much stronger European defense and respond to the hybrid threats that we face.”
Whether the EU can translate this determination into sustained political and industrial coordination remains uncertain. Success will depend on reconciling Franco-German leadership disputes, harmonizing national requirements and sustaining public support for defense spending projected to reach 2% of GDP by 2028. Failure to act would not only perpetuate Europe’s strategic dependency but also embolden adversaries who view the continent’s internal divisions as its greatest weakness. Copenhagen, in this sense, stands less as an endpoint than as a warning: Europe has entered an age in which defense is no longer optional — and unity no longer a luxury.
