The European Commission will propose expanding a planned “drone wall” initiative beyond the bloc’s eastern flank after some members reportedly said they felt left out. The drone wall, backed by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union speech in September, is a response to growing threats and incursions of Russian military drones in EU member states.
These include Poland, Latvia and Denmark. The plan was reported by the Reuters news agency on Tuesday, citing several anonymous sources close to the EU executive.
The sources were quoted as saying that the proposal for a broader drone initiative would be made public by the Commission on Thursday this week.
A new kind of barrier for new threats
In order to work, the drone wall will require a combination of sensors and jamming equipment. The European Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius, a former prime minister of Lithuania, has been a strong supporter of the project while some European politicians, such as German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, expressed scepticism about its feasibility: either that the wall could be implemented on time (sooner than three or four years) or that it would be effective.
