EU mulls how to respond to Russian threats as defence gaps remain

European Union defence ministers are meeting on Monday to discuss improving Europe's defence readiness and plans on how to better respond to persistent hybrid threats from Russia.

"The investment in defence has increased, but at the same time, we have big defence capability gaps," said EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas as she arrived at the meeting in Brussels.

"Now we should focus on how we actually fill those gaps," she said without providing further details.

The ministers are discussing a recent report by the European Defence Agency, one of the EU's official agencies. According to information obtained by dpa, the report identified significant gaps in areas including air defence, drones and ammunition stocks.

Efforts to close these gaps were described as insufficient to significantly strengthen Europe's defence readiness as planned by 2030.

German Defence State Secretary Sebastian Hartmann said the EU is "on the right track."

"We Europeans are working together to close critical capability gaps," he said, adding that Germany was making contributions in the areas of land warfare, maritime capabilities and military mobility.

Hartmann called on other EU countries to significantly increase their defence spending, as Germany has done, to boost European defence production.

"Why should the European defence industry build up capacity if European countries do not make it clear that they will actually buy the products," he said.

Defence ministers also discussed plans for a joint response to security threats from Russia, following a foiled drone attack at a German airport and a strike targeting a railway line linking Ukraine and Poland, ahead of the new EU security strategy to be presented later this year.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called earlier this month for a European alert mechanism, independent of NATO, to jointly respond to security threats that fall below the level of an armed aggression.

Under the plans, all 27 EU countries would convene should one country trigger the planned alert mechanism. The aim would be to deter further escalation and to mitigate the impact of the threat.

Polish Deputy Defence Minister Paweł Zalewski welcomed the plans, saying they are "a very good idea" as NATO is prepared to respond to military threats but has "some gaps" in responding to hybrid activities.

Hybrid attacks refer to harmful activities that aim to undermine a target, such as a state or an institution, through a variety of means, often combined. These could include information manipulation, cyberattacks, economic influence or coercion, covert political manoeuvring, coercive diplomacy, or threats of military force. 

Hartmann said that NATO and EU need to act together to deal with the hybrid attacks.

French Minister of the Armed Forces Catherine Vautrin stressed the importance of cooperation between EU intelligence agencies.

"I believe it is precisely these exchanges that will enable us to go even further and be even stronger in the face of these hybrid threats," she said.