Five European Powers Join To Build Anti-Drone Air Defence System
Defence ministers from five major European powers announce a joint initiative in Krakow to accelerate development and production of low-cost counter-drone air defence systems amid lessons drawn from the Ukraine war. Image courtesy: X.com/@LukePollard
The five biggest military powers of Europe have declared that they would jointly develop a multi-million-euro counter-drone Air Defence System at low cost and put into production within a year from now.
The Defence Ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom met at the Polish city of Krakow on Friday (February 20, 2026).
This development comes against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine that has once again showcased how autonomous, cheap drones, including interceptor and kamikaze unmanned aerial vehicles, can cause huge asymmetric damage on military powers.
The European leaders, during their meeting, decided to work on boosting the military capabilities, as European nations doubt the US’s commitment to protecting the continent, and immediately Ukraine, where a Russian war is raging for nearly four years now.
“It’s a multi-million pound, multi-million euro commitment … to step up this technology,” United Kingdom’s Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard said. “We’re really hopeful that this will produce an effector that… will be in production within 12 months.”
In military terminology, “effectors” are the components of a system that produce a physical effect, while “autonomous platforms” are unmanned systems capable of independent decision-making, a media report explained.
The ‘Low-Cost Effectors and Autonomous Platforms’ initiative, known as LEAP, involves the development of advanced low-cost air-defence systems, such as autonomous drones or missiles , the first project of which will be delivered by 2027, the UK government said in a separate statement.
“We have just signed a very important commitment on the joint development of drone-based strike capabilities, low-cost, joint production, and joint procurement of low-cost drone effectors and payloads,” Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said. “This is the challenge of our times…technologies are changing…and we must respond very quickly.”
