EU eyes funding to mass-produce low-cost drones to fortify NATO’s eastern flank.

The European Commission is exploring concrete financing tools to scale drone production inside the EU, drawing on models like the ASAP munitions program and new “drone wall” plans for the eastern flank. The push follows a spate of suspicious air incursions and drone disruptions across NATO’s front line, underscoring the need for cheaper interceptors and mass-manufactured systems.

Euractiv reported on Oct. 1, 2025, that EU officials are canvassing industry and EU budget lines to finance large-scale drone production within the Union, potentially via an ASAP-style instrument tailored to drones and a broader “drone wall” concept on NATO’s eastern flank. Early options include repurposing defence-industry funds and leveraging proceeds from frozen Russian assets, alongside parallel pledges for Ukrainian drone capacity. Europe needs cheaper, abundant drones and counter-drone systems, to match adversaries’ low-cost tactics without exhausting high-end air defenses.
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Vector unmanned aerial system prepared for a short to medium-range ISR mission (Picture source: Quantum-Systems)

On one side, military demand for drones of all sizes is expanding and diversifying. On the other hand, the European industrial base is not yet scaled to deliver thousands of systems that are reliable, rugged, sustainable, and with secure supply chains. The Commission is therefore probing room for maneuvering. Using existing instruments, such as cohesion funds for aeronautical regions. Deploying SAFE loans to bring forward factory investments. Opening certain health-related instruments to dual use when they affect critical components. Connecting the future EDIP program to very concrete needs in electronic subassemblies. 

At the platoon and company levels, forces require hardened, compact quadcopters with encrypted links, capable of carrying payloads of a few hundred grams. Day and night cameras, rangefinders, small observation turrets. Useful endurance sits between thirty and sixty minutes, which requires high-density batteries and proper thermal management. One step up, fixed-wing mini-UAVs provide prolonged surveillance.

This involves quiet composite airframes, propellers optimized for discretion, stabilized EO/IR modules, and sometimes laser designators. Additional needs include anti-jamming navigation, inertial support, and onboard vision to cope with degraded GNSS. Finally, the family of tactical drones provides twelve to twenty hours on station. It requires robust mesh radios, sometimes SATCOM, certified autopilots, and above all, an open architecture to integrate new payloads quickly.

Counter-drone activity follows the same tiered logic. Forward units want short-range radars able to produce clean tracks on slow, low targets. They add passive RF sensors to detect and geolocate. Identification often relies on electro-optical sensors coupled with automated tracking. Then come the effects. Command-link jamming. GNSS disruption. And, when physical neutralization is required, it means at a reasonable cost per shot. Guns with programmable ammunition, short-range rockets, dedicated interceptors. Integration remains the key. A sensor must hand off an exploitable track to an effector within seconds. The operator interface must stay simple so that conscripts, after a short course, can act without delay.

On the ground, the imperatives are clear. Immediate reconnaissance for infantry. Artillery correction. Battle damage assessment. And, increasingly, offensive use of very short-range FPV drones with shaped charge or thermobaric payloads. Europe will face the same triad. To remain credible, programs will need modular architecture and standardized interfaces. A camera certified in one country should fly on another country’s airframe without redevelopment. Support chains will have to stock replaceable sets at squad level. Propellers, motors, radio modules, batteries. Field experience also shows that acoustic and thermal signatures count as much as radio range. Adding kilometers of link budget is pointless if the aircraft is revealed by noise or heat at takeoff.

The war in Ukraine shapes both demand and urgency. Tensions on the Union’s periphery and the global spread of low-cost drones, sometimes produced abroad, raise a question of strategic autonomy. Relying on imports for secure radios, sensors, or materials can stall a program at the worst moment. A dedicated European instrument will not remove every dependency, but it can map critical components, secure buffer stocks, and send a clear signal to industry. States and the Commission will then need to align specifications and pool orders to avoid micro series that break the economics of production lines. This is more plumbing than headline announcements. Yet it is how battalions receive drones that fly and the means to stop them, at a cost that can be sustained over time.