European leaders pledged to resist Russian attempts to sow discord while debating how to strengthen the bloc’s economic competitiveness and reduce regulatory burdens, during talks in Copenhagen on Monday.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned against Moscow’s recent provocations, citing a surge in drone sightings over Denmark. “It’s a pattern, and this pattern is coming from Russia,” she told reporters. “Russia tries to test us, but Russia also tries to sow division and anxiety in our societies. We will not let this happen.”
Alongside security concerns, the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas pressed for swift progress on using frozen Russian assets to finance reparations for Ukraine. “If we don’t take these [Russian] assets into account then it is on our taxpayers, that’s for sure,” Kallas argued, stressing the need for a collective solution despite reservations among some member states.
The meeting also turned to Europe’s economic outlook, with leaders emphasising the need to ease bureaucracy and support domestic industries. French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated his longstanding call for “European preference,” urging a shift away from what he described as a “double standard” that leaves European companies disadvantaged. “In the US, you have a US agenda. In China, it is sometimes a Chinese exclusivity. Europe is the only place where you impose regulations on your players, while negotiating the lifting of barriers for non-European competitors,” he said, singling out the EU’s draft trade deal with Mercosur as an example.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk echoed concerns over competitiveness, calling for deregulation rather than subsidies. He pointed to conversations with Polish steel companies demanding relief from regulatory pressure. “Our ambitions cannot mean that we continue to impose new burdens on companies,” he said. “Europe accounts for only 6% of global emissions. We cannot constantly be the ones reducing at a pace that no company can bear, when others do not.”
Von der Leyen defended the Commission’s record, noting that she had tabled six “omnibus” proposals to cut bureaucracy, worth an estimated €8 billion in savings for business. But she admitted that none had yet been adopted by the Council of Ministers or the European Parliament. In a pointed aside, she added: “I would like to see the European Parliament here too, because we need them also to move the whole ship forward.”
The Copenhagen discussions underscored a dual challenge for Europe: deterring external threats while rebalancing internal policies to safeguard competitiveness. Leaders stressed urgency but revealed national differences over how to proceed.
EU leaders gathered in Copenhagen on Wednesday under pressure to boost European defence after a series of Russian incursions into EU airspace, and days after drones targeted Danish airports.
The incursions have become most acute for countries on the EU’s eastern flank such as Poland and Estonia. Ten member states have already backed plans for a multi-layered “drone wall” to quickly detect, then track and destroy Russian drones.
Denmark has beefed up security ahead of the summit, banning all civilian drone flights until Friday and placing heavy restrictions on traffic in Copenhagen.
Despite the high security, there was little evidence of alarm in the centre of the capital ahead of the summit.
Denmark will also host a broader European Political Community summit on Thursday and international allies have lent support to ensure both events pass without incident.
Copenhagen airport, followed by several Danish airports and military sites on the Jutland peninsula, faced drone disruption last week.
Anti-drone and surveillance support has been brought in from Poland, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and the US. A German frigate has also docked in Copenhagen.
As host to dozens of European leaders over two days, Denmark will want to fend off any more unwelcome surprises in its air space.
Danish police have not found any evidence that Russia was behind last week’s drone disruption, which caused no injuries, but the government has blamed a “professional actor”. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has said there is “primarily one country that poses a threat to Europe’s security – that is Russia”.
Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson also said “everything points to [Russia]”.
Stockholm has loaned “a handful of powerful radar systems” to its neighbour for the two summits, according to Kristersson.
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv is sending a mission to Denmark for joint exercises to provide “Ukrainian experience in drone defence”.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said ahead of the summit that air space incursions were getting worse and worse and it was “reasonable to assume the drones are coming from Russia”.
Drones have been seen in recent days over Germany’s northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, and flights have been delayed in the past week at Vilnius airport in Lithuania and at Oslo airport in Norway because of drone activity.
“We are not at war, but we are no longer at peace either. We must do much more for our own security,” Merz told a media event in Düsseldorf this week.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was obvious Germany had long been “indirectly involved” in the war in Ukraine and he rejected “unfounded accusations” of Russian involvement in last week’s disruption in Denmark.
“Europe would be better off seeking dialogue on security issues rather than looking to build a divisive “drone wall”, he said on Tuesday.
Such is the concern at Russian activity on Europe’s eastern flank that Nato met for consultations twice in September under Article 4 of its treaty, first after drones violated Polish airspace and then when Russian MiG-31 war planes entered Estonian air space for 12 minutes.
“We have to keep our skies safe,” said Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, who met European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels on the eve of the Copenhagen summit.
The idea of a drone wall was raised a month ago by von der Leyen, and Rutte said it was “timely and necessary because in the end we cannot spend millions of euros or dollars on missiles to take out drones which are only costing a couple of thousand dollars”.
A senior EU diplomat told the BBC there were still questions over financing the plan and over command and control, but Europe’s response to Russia’s drone violations in Poland had led to some serious soul-searching: “We have to be more agile and find better tools.”
A former brigadier general in the Danish military, Ole Kvaerno, told the BBC that the drone wall was “a political, very generic concept at the moment”, but that last week’s drone activity over his country had been a wake-up call for the authorities and the broader Danish population.
He warned that the target of the next attack might be different.
“It could be infrastructure like energy supply,” said Kvaerno of the Danish Centre for Defence Robotics and Autonomy. “The nature of hybrid war is that it’s intended to take us by surprise. So we’re not done with operational shocks like this one.”
Another flagship project, called Eastern Flank Watch, is aimed at fortifying the EU’s eastern borders by sea, air and land to protect against so-called hybrid warfare, as well as from Russia’s shadow fleet. Von der Leyen said the EU would have to collaborate on this with both Nato and Ukraine.
EU leaders will be shown plans for a “road map” aimed at bolstering defences and developing Europe’s defence industries by the end of the decade to produce state-of-the-art military equipment. The plans will then be worked on with Nato before EU leaders meet again later this month.
According to the plans for being “2030-ready”, Europe needs to move now so its capabilities are prepared for “the battlefields of tomorrow”.
One of the core ideas is to increasingly focus on joint procurement. The EU has already backed proposals to raise up to €150bn (£130bn) on capital markets to help fund defence investment. The UK and Canada are likely to take part in the fund.
The EU’s financial support for Ukraine will also be discussed, more than three and a half years into Russia’s full-scale war.
Ukraine is also a candidate to join the EU, but is facing hardening opposition from Hungary and tensions along their shared border, after Kyiv accused Budapest of sending reconnaissance drones into western Ukraine.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is one of Russia’s closest allies in the EU, claimed Ukraine was “not a sovereign country” as it was being financed by the West.
Via BBC
