The European Parliament’s Transport and Tourism Committee (TRAN) heard about the increasing threat of airspace incursions this week. Hundreds of high-altitude balloons from neighbouring Belarus entered Lithuanian airspace last year, Vilnius government representatives told the committee.
Lithuanian Minister for Transport and Communications Juras Taminskas reported a series of coordinated aerial campaigns featuring weather-balloon-style craft with payloads of up to 60kg. These pose an “acute safety risk” to civilian air traffic. More than 500 such balloons have reportedly crossed into Lithuanian airspace just in 2025. The incursions have repeatedly led to the closure of the country’s Vilnius and Kaunas airports.
“These are not one-off events,” Mr Taminskas told MEPs. “The attacks are cheap, cynical and deliberately designed to undermine confidence in the EU’s transport infrastructure.” And the threat, he stressed, does not stop at Lithuania but extends to the entire EU.
The country’s Vilnius airport, just 30km away from the Belarusian border, has reportedly borne the brunt of the incursions. The facility has experienced 15 separate closures of its airspace over the last two months of 2025, Mr Taminskas said. In one case, the airport was out of service for 11 hours, leading to 31 flight cancellations and the stranding of over 7,000 passengers. In total, the disruptions in October and November reportedly affected around 350 flights and more than 51,000 passengers, leading to around €2.3m in direct losses.
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Infrastructure under strain
The balloons typically fly at high altitudes of around 15km and can reach speeds of up to 100km/h. They are often invisible to civilian air traffic radars, however, and Lithuania’s national air traffic management system does not have the capability to identify the incursions. “We rely heavily on military radar,” said Saulius Batavičius, CEO of Lithuania’s air traffic service provider Oro Navigacija. “But NATO security protocols make real-time information sharing difficult.”
Civilian air traffic organizations, he explained, “are not ready to deal with these types of threats”. Also, no safe (and economical) means are available to shoot down the balloons once they have entered controlled airspace.
Lithuania’s management of the incursions, however, has changed significantly. Mr Taminskas said that the Ministry of Transport and Communications, defence forces, and civil aviation authorities have coordinated their emergency responses. Response times are down from hours to just a few minutes. Even so, he emphasised, “there is no EU-wide mechanism to detect intercept or address these incursions,” and he requested an EU-wide approach.
European solidarity and regulatory gaps
Several MEPs expressed their solidarity with Lithuania and emphasised that the issue required a coordinated response from all EU member states. “This is a serious threat and not unique to Lithuania,” noted MEP Jens Gieseke (EPP/DEU), mentioning that German and Swedish airports have also faced hybrid threats including drone incursions and GPS jamming.
MEP Johan Danielsson (S&D/SWE) asked the Lithuanian government delegation about the form of the EU assistance it would most appreciate, questioning whether changes in EU legislation, funding, or even technical assistance would be of greatest use. He and several other MEPs suggested that Lithuanian officials might benefit from better coordination with organizations such as the EU’s European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Eurocontrol, as well as more effective integration of military and civilian airspace management.
Other MEPs also posed questions to the Lithuanian delegation about what protections are available for passengers who are impacted by the incursions. There is currently no known civil or criminal mechanism that protects those affected, government representatives confirmed. They explained that civil claims have been lodged by affected civil aviation authorities and airlines to merge with related criminal proceedings — but it remains uncertain whether any compensation will be provided.
