Article 42.7 of the European Union Treaty – similar to NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense clause – needs to be put into effect, with clear procedures for activation and coordination, particularly in cases where a response from the alliance cannot be taken for granted, says European Commissioner for Defense and Space Andrius Kubilius.

Speaking to Kathimerini, Kubilius notes that Europe also needs to prepare for the US defense industry’s shift toward replenishing American military stockpiles.

As the European Commission continues to develop a new European security strategy, the Lithuanian commissioner does not rule out Turkey’s participation in that security architecture, though he explicitly states that any involvement must be based strictly on established eligibility criteria.

Ahead of a two-day visit to Athens starting Monday, Kubilius urges Greece to move forward with the development of joint European defense projects. He also announces plans to deploy infrastructure in the country for the European system GovSatCom, which provides secure and reliable satellite communications.

The war in Iran has once more exposed how quickly regional conflicts can escalate and affect European security. What are the key lessons for the European Union and how should they shape Europe’s defense priorities?

We see how rapidly conflicts are becoming worse and spreading around Europe. And if the Russian war against Ukraine was and is threatening the eastern part of Europe, now the war against Iran is creating a lot of threats and challenges to the south, to Mediterranean countries. This means that all of us in Europe need to take European defense very seriously – and that is our strategic priority. Besides the threats – as we saw with the attacks on the bases in Cyprus and so on – we have a structural problem. Until now, we as Europeans were procuring around 40% of weapons from the United States, which also allowed access to special weapons, especially anti-ballistic systems for Ukraine. Now, as we understand from media reports, Americans have depleted their stockpiles very heavily. And as we hear from different experts, during the next several years, everything the American industry produces will go to replenish those stockpiles. So we shall have the additional issue of how to build our capabilities, scale up our production and so on.

But are European defense companies capable of covering the defense needs of EU member-states, given that we are still heavily dependent on the technological efficiency of US defense companies?

Our companies are quite good at developing new technologies, though there are some areas where we need to catch up, especially with artificial intelligence. But our bigger problem is that money flows are increasing more rapidly than our defense industry is able to increase production. That is why I decided months ago to go around all the different industries that produce missiles, because the supply of missiles to Ukraine can be the biggest challenge. We talked about the reasons why our industries are not able to ramp up as rapidly as we’d like and why we are still in a situation where Russia is outproducing us, and what we need to do in order to change the situation.

You have said many times that the EU could be challenged by Russia by 2030. Do you believe that it will be ready by then to confront such a threat?

We have made it a priority and we need to achieve that result. We need to produce enough weapons for our member-states to raise their capabilities. We also need to remember that in such a case, we would face a battle-tested army. That is why, in my view, integrating Ukrainian defense capabilities with our own would make us much stronger.

How relevant is Article 42.7 given this environment, and can it evolve into a truly operational mechanism, as some EU leaders requested in Cyprus last week?

That is one of the most important discussions right now. We have a powerful article but it’s not operationalized, so we really need to put down some details on how such an article can be triggered, how it can be implemented, and what role can be played by EU institutions in helping member-states coordinate that mutual assistance. I hope that quite soon we shall have what the US is doing, some kind of “table exercises,” and then we can look at what more needs to be done. I would also like to stress that when we’re talking about mutual assistance, we have two areas of assistance: civilian and military. So it would be good to have some kind of playbook for prime ministers to see all those possibilities, so they can really use those possibilities in the case of military aggression. With civilian assistance, we are really quite advanced in our development of different instruments. In the area of military assistance, however, if NATO’s Article 5 is invoked, then European Union military assistance would not be very important. But if should would happen in such a way that NATO would not be active, this article would be very important, and that is why we need to develop proper procedures on how it can be triggered. If, you know, we were to see that the situation is becoming tense in some region, either in Iran or Eastern Europe, that adversaries are starting to bring their troops around, we would be able to start all the processes, in a discreet way, in advance, asking the countries to be ready to give this mutual assistance. 

What concrete role could Greece play in such a framework? Do you see the possibility of a Mediterranean flank watch, similar to the Eastern Flank Watch?

Greece is a good example of a country with strong military capabilities and with defense and space industries that can play a very important role in the Mediterranean region. But it is also very important that we develop pan-European or regional projects, since EU member-states usually go with their national defense policy, and that creates fragmentation. That is why we started this new initiative for European Defense Projects of Common Interests, like Eastern Flank Watch. Mediterranean countries could look for something similar, especially on issues like security for undersea cables and maritime security.

Greece’s security concerns, of course, are not abstract. Given that, according to the Commission’s 2025 progress report, Turkey does not fully align with European foreign policy, could it still be part of Europe’s defense architecture? And could it participate in defense schemes, as certain member-states advocate?

I don’t have a very strict answer. Definitely, Turkey is a NATO member-state but it is not an EU member-state. So, when we are implementing EU programs, we have very clear eligibility criteria and if countries like Turkey want to participate, they will need to meet those criteria. All the programs we are proposing need to be unanimously supported in the European Council. And perhaps Turkey knows very well that there are some bilateral issues with some EU member-states. And that is something Turkey or some of its neighbors can try to resolve.

So it could become a part of Europe’s defense architecture?

We are not, you know, so precise about what European security or defense architecture means. A very important process now relates to the preparation of the so-called European security strategy, which will come out somewhere in the middle of the year, maybe after the NATO summit in Ankara. Then, perhaps, other topics will start to be developed, like Article 42.7. We’re also talking about a European Defense Union and a European pillar of NATO. So a lot of ideas are in discussion in parallel. But we are not, at the moment, at what I call institutional defense readiness. If it’s material defense readiness, like weapons production, and finances, then, yes, we made some big steps during the last year. But for institutional defense readiness, we are at the initial stage of discussions.

So the EU does not exclude the participation of third countries, though this will depend on the strategy that will be developed in the next few months, correct? 

Yeah, sure. 

Your discussions in Athens will include GovSatCom. Do you see Greece as a potential regional hub for EU space and surveillance capabilities? 

To put it simply, we are “building” a European Starlink and Greece can play a very important role.

Can Europe realistically compete with the US and China in this area of advanced and space technologies?

I am surprised that we are so pessimistic about our capabilities. Europe may be slow to start sometimes, but when it does, it can achieve a leadership level. We have seen this with Galileo [the global navigation satellite system], which is more accurate than the US GPS, and with Copernicus [the Earth observation system], which is the best system worldwide. The next step is our new satellite constellation for secure satellite communication. Some experts are saying it will be better than Starlink – and I do not argue with that.

Source: Ekathimerini.com