UK agrees drone defence plan with four EU allies

Britain is to develop new air defence weapons alongside the EU's four biggest military powers, deepening ties with the European defence sector.

The project will invite manufacturers in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Poland to submit plans to build low-cost missiles and autonomous drones.

The allies are pledging a speedy process to build the weapons together, inspired by Ukraine's development of cheap drones to counter attacks from Russia.

The UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) says the programme will prioritise a "lightweight, affordable" surface-to-air weapon, with the first project to be delivered by next year.

The plan, announced at a meeting of the five countries' defence ministers in the Polish city of Krakow, marks a boost to UK-Europe ties after the failure of talks last year over UK participation in the EU's new €150bn (£130bn) defence fund.

Agreement would have allowed British defence companies to play a greater part in joint projects funded by the loans, but negotiations fell apart after the UK rejected a multibillion euro entry fee demanded by the EU.

A budget for the latest drone defence plan has not been confirmed, but Defence Minister Luke Pollard told reporters in Poland that each country was making a "multimillion pound, multimillion euro" commitment to the scheme.

The MoD says it will take inspiration from Ukraine, which has quickly developed a huge domestic drone manufacturing sector since Russia's full-scale invasion of the country four years ago.

Huge numbers of low-cost drones have become a key part in defending the country from Russian attacks that can involve hundreds of attack drones, rendering traditional missile defence systems impractical and costly.

"To be effective at shooting down relatively low-cost missiles, drones and other threats facing us, we need to make sure that we're matching the cost of the threat with the cost of defence," said Pollard after the meeting.

He added that the drone defence plan agreed on Friday would be the first in a series of initiatives from the group of five allies, known as the E5, to change the "economics of warfare" amid the threat from Russia.

The MoD has not provided a detailed plan for how drones could be developed more quickly, but is pledging to step up co-operation with smaller technology companies and minimise operational requirements for taking part in projects.

Europe is under pressure to increase defence spending in the wake of the Ukraine war and questions over the reliability of the United States as a Nato ally.

The E5 group, which first met in autumn 2024 after Donald Trump's re-election, has now met seven times and has emerged as a key body for boosting European defence co-operation outside the much larger structures of the EU.

Boosting the use of autonomous drones, which can independently identify targets without human control using AI, was a key part of a wide-ranging review of UK military capabilities unveiled in summer last year.

That review saw the MoD commit to developing "more permissive" regulations for such autonomous systems, in a potential shift away from the position that there should always be "context-appropriate human involvement" in weapons.