Measuring Europe’s rearmament: A year of the Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030
Bottom lines up front
- It has been one year since the EU released the Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030, a detailed plan to measure and close Europe’s capability gaps.
- Fifteen of the roadmap’s milestones are on track or complete; seventeen are not; the status of thirteen milestones is unclear.
- Instead of trying to entirely replace the US, Europe should focus on the key capabilities it can’t currently produce and that the US has suggested it will pull back.
Table of contents
- Introduction
- The destination, the roadmap, and the forty-five milestones
- Process and funding sources
- The challenge: Member states are in the driver’s seat
- Areas for Europe to prioritize
- Why Europe shouldn’t try to replace the US entirely
- Conclusion
- Full list of roadmap deliverables and their status
Introduction
European security is increasingly a European Union issue. The security role the bloc plays today would have been unimaginable just a decade ago. Immediate concerns over the threat Russia poses to Europe and increasing uncertainty about Washington’s commitment to Europe have pushed European member states to let the EU take unprecedented action in the security and defense space. The launch of the Pentagon’s Europe Force Posture Review on July 29 is only the latest reminder that the United States’ posture on the continent remains in flux.
Member states are still in the driver’s seat on security matters, but the EU has found ways to play a role, particularly to help pool resources to better address threats together and support collaborative and flagship European defense projects. Previous strategies, such as the White Paper on European Defence, the SAFE lending mechanism, and the ReArm Europe Plan/Readiness 2030 each sought to boost public and private investment in defense and give member states greater financial flexibility to strengthen production and readiness. An immediate critique that can be raised to the EU’s many such plans and strategies, however, is the lack of followof follow-through. The EU excels at grand outlines but struggles with the tactical steps to achieve its ambitions.
It is for this reason that the EU’s detailed Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030 stands out. Published in October 2025, the document serves as a yardstick, providing measurable goals, concrete benchmarks, and specific deliverables to the various ideas such as those previously sketched out in the White Paper, for example. The roadmap pays special focus to four flagship projects and nine capability indicators against which Europe’s progress towards full defense readiness can be tracked.
A year on, the EU has currently completed or is on track to complete fifteen of the roadmap’s stated milestones, but it has missed or is not on track to meet seventeen. The status of the remaining thirteen is unclear. While the roadmap clearly lays out the capabilities Europe needs to develop in the future, it is important that a smaller number of critical gaps are prioritized now to effectively manage limited resources and ensure Europe’s ongoing security in both the near term and the long term. This report will assess the EU’s progress towards the goals it set for itself in the roadmap and suggest a way forward to ensure the defense readiness of the Union.
The destination, the roadmap, and the forty-five milestones
The roadmap sets out clear objectives and milestones to achieve defense readiness by 2030, which the roadmap defines as ensuring member states’ armed forces are equipped and prepared to anticipate and respond to defense crises, including high-intensity warfare. Among its key proposals are four flagship projects: the Eastern Flank Watch, the European Drone Defence Initiative, the European Air Shield, and the European Space Shield. Additionally, the roadmap outlines nine initial priority capability areas, which include strategic enablers, air and missile defense, and drones and counterdrones. It also proposes a new Annual Defence Readiness Report to measure the evolution of collective EU military shortfalls across each priority capability area against previous years and the number of projects launched and capabilities procured. The proposed report is to be released every October, with the first edition expected later this month. While internal tracking mechanisms exist, the significance of these initiatives, as well as the specificity of timelines listed in the roadmap, calls for external accountability as well, outside of internal EU mechanisms.
The EU’s flagship defense projects and enabling initiatives
The EU’s Defence Readiness Roadmap identifies four flagship projects and a series of enabling initiatives to prepare Europe to anticipate and respond to defense crises on its own, with less support from Washington, by 2030.
A year since the roadmap’s release, the implementation of these initiatives has been mixed. At the time of writing, only 20 percent of the objectives with target dates in 2026 have been completed. Specific wins include the adoption of legislative items such as the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP) and presentation of the military mobility package, which were both accomplished in the timeframe set out in the roadmap. EDIP put out its first funding call for proposals in July. However, both EDIP and the military mobility package were both planned before the release of the roadmap, making their completion low-hanging fruit. Similarly, the roll-out of the collaborative effort to bring battle-tested defense tech from Ukraine to the European Union—Brave Tech EU, first announced four months ahead of the roadmap’s release—was completed, though ahead of its stated deadline, with funding and Phase II of the program initiated on April 29 of this year.
Despite this progress, seventeen of the roadmap’s objectives are behind schedule or have yet to be initiated. The European Council has yet to endorse any of the four flagship projects, which the roadmap set out for completion by the end of 2025. These projects have remained unendorsed for eight European Council meetings. The Defence Readiness Omnibus and the “mini” Omnibus, which were supposed to be finalized and adopted by the end of 2025 according to the roadmap, still sit in a provisional agreement phase.
Further still, the status of thirteen initiatives is unclear. The establishment of the roadmap’s capability coalitions, a key initiative to address Europe’s various capability gaps, remains ambiguous. The European Commission’s recent announcement of European Defence Projects of Common Interest (EDPCIs) may seem to fulfill similar conditions and requirements. There has been no public connection, however, between capability coalitions and the EDPCIs. The EDCPIs themselves are still under negotiation between the Commission and the Parliament, and they lack a clear timeline for implementation. Similarly, the capability gaps targeted by the European Drone Defence Initiative (one of the four “readiness flagships”) overlap with those addressed by the EU Action Plan on Drone and Counter-Drone Security and the EDPCI DronE and Counter Drone European Resolve (DECODER). However, because the European Drone Defence Initiative remains unendorsed by the European Council, it is unclear whether DECODER and the Action Plan will form part of the flagship or operate as complementary initiatives. Similar uncertainty surrounds other readiness flagships, as related projects move forward while the flagships themselves remain unendorsed and largely unmentioned.
Process and funding sources
Ensuring adequate financial resources and investment is listed as a priority for the roadmap. Yet funding remains a challenge. The roadmap cites the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the EU’s seven-year budget, as a major source of funding for many of the projects and initiatives. The majority of the funding for these will fall under the next MFF, due out in 2028. The next iteration of the MFF is currently under negotiation, and its focus on defense is meant to shift EU funding from short-term emergency-based structures to long-term, sustainable defense financing structures. The Commission has proposed €131 billion for defense and space for the 2028 –2034 MMF, up from €14.9 billion in the previous seven-year budget. (Funds for other EU defense initiatives including SAFE came from different sources.) EU funding for the roadmap’s initiatives will come through the proposed European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), which has an indicative budget of €125.3 billion for resilience, security, defense industry, and space. Funding structures such as the ECF will work alongside member states and industry to maximize and accelerate cohesive investment in security. The roadmap notes these envelopes as key to ensuring the success of its initiatives.
Despite a nearly 78 percent increase in proposed funding, these EU-provided funds will not be sufficient to support the projects the roadmap outlines. Nor are they intended to be. Member states are expected to use their own resources to support the projects, in addition to investments from the European Investment Bank, funds made available by a relaxation of spending rules, and additional EU loans, for example those provided through the EU’s SAFE mechanism.
The roadmap also noted the importance of private capital. The goal of creating a joint European Investment Bank-European Investment Fund envelope of €1 billion demonstrates awareness of the role of private investment in spurring European defense readiness. However, this goal has only been partially accomplished, with the launch of the Defence Equity Facility 2.0 in March 2026. However, the fund is still in a fundraising phase and capital has yet to be deployed. There is only so much the EU can do to act as the driver of private capital into the European defense market. However, given its importance to achieving the goals set out by the roadmap, what can be done must be prioritized, as funding is the key to closing capability gaps.
A simplified and integrated European defense equipment market is key for scaling up production, achieving economies of scale, and driving innovation. By 2030, the goal is to establish an EU-wide market with harmonized rules that enable industry to deliver at speed and volume. The Commission will track industrial capacity to ensure Europe can meet its most urgent needs. The roadmap lays out key metrics to track progress, to be shared potentially in the Annual Defence Readiness Report: the share that EU member states’ defense industry contribute to EU GDP; the share of workers in member states’ defense industries, including the number of new jobs created annually; the share of new or expanded defense production facilities, the implementation of EU programs support to innovation in defense, the number of defense related patents registered in the EU, the number of startups created, and the number of unicorns (private companies with valuations above $1 billion) in the defense sector.
The challenge: Member states are in the driver’s seat
A nearly fatal flaw of the roadmap speaks to the fundamental realities of the EU defense dilemma: The European Commission can be as forward-leaning as it wants, but ultimately defense and security remains a prerogative of member states, and member states will control the speed at which EU projects develop.
Indeed, while the EU’s twenty-seven member states are hampered by a lengthy decision-making process and by strategic and institutional differences, the European Commission appears to be driving policy forward. Perhaps it is the only actor capable of overcoming divergent views to achieve the goals set for before 2030. The Commission, President Ursula von der Leyen in particular, has the motivation and bird’s-eye view to push the EU as a whole towards greater security. Nevertheless, the European Commission’s prerogatives in the field of defense continue to expand at the expense of the sovereign powers of the member states, and the Commission remains beholden to the member sates on the implementation of its grand strategic plans.
Member state capitals are therefore often concerned about a loss of control and a disconnect between the armed forces’ actual needs and European projects. This is true in the biggest member states, such as France and Germany, that have significant economic stakes, and in smaller ones who are skeptical of ceding control to Brussels. The flagship projects primarily address the concerns of countries on the Easternthe Eastern Flank, which is directly threatened by Russia. It is therefore necessary to convince countries further away from the Russian threat to join and fund these projects. While instruments like EDIP can serve as test cases, particularly in defining project selection and award criteria, the MFF will be even more significant in scope, pushing member states to become fully aligned on capability development.
Areas for Europe to prioritize
The roadmap constituted a positive step toward Europe’s taking responsibility for its own security and even demonstrating a sense of awareness about how it intends to meet its objectives. It highlights Europe’s ability to take stock of its own capabilities and identify current and future gaps, as the US continues to pull back from the continent. However, the roadmap also envisions prioritizing numerous major initiatives at once, all while Europe still lacks the industrial capacity and financial resources to do so. For this reason, the Commission should focus intensely on driving the development of a few key capabilities and ensuring development and adoption is cohesive across member states.
Against the backdrop of rapid technological developments observed in Ukraine and facing growing shortages of American equipment due to the Iran war, Europeans’ most acute challenges will be to innovate more, produce faster, and produce in greater quantities. The focus must be on drones, deep-strike missile capabilities, and strategic enablers. The war in Ukraine highlights daily the need to combine mass and technology. Europeans must therefore be capable of producing more at a lower cost.
Drones and mass
Europe has rightly placed a significant amount of emphasis on drone development across numerous initiatives. The roadmap’s European Drone Defence Initiative has not been officially endorsed, but the Action Plan on Drone and Counter Drone Security and EDPCI DECODER present a clear blueprint for funding and developing drones, as well as a clear delegation of responsibility between the EU and various participating member states. Europe is also significantly accelerating its production of military drones through strategic industrial partnerships and joint agreements with Ukraine, including through the EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance and the EU-Ukraine Defence Industrial Partnership. Concurrently, Ukraine is relocating part of its unmanned system production to Europe to avoid Russian strikes and secure its supply chains.
Deep strike capabilities
The war in Ukraine has also continuously demonstrated the importance of conventional deep-strike capabilities—the systems capable of reaching targets beyond five hundred kilometers, in large numbers and at a controlled cost. The roadmap distinguishes these capabilities as a priority to be addressed primarily though the capability coalitions, as well as through the Eastern Flank Watch and European Air Shield flagships. As noted, while the Eastern Flank Watch has been launched as an EDPCI, the official flagship remains unendorsed. The status of the European Air Shield and the capability coalition on air and missile defense remains unclear.
A focus on the sovereign development of these capabilities is acutely necessary, considering the cancelation of a planned deployment of a US long-range fires battalion to Germany in May, with further pullback expected at the conclusion of the Pentagon’s Force Posture Review and as the US deals with the depletion of its own stockpiles. Europe currently relies on US Tomahawk and Dark Eagle missiles for long-range strike capabilities, with no European equivalent to replace the range provided by these systems. This near-total dependency on the US makes the development of European deep-strike capabilities a top priority, as the US continues to signal an intention to limit the provision of these systems to Europe.
Some European countries have shown a desire to prioritize deep-strike capabilities, as shown by the announcement of a new UK-led initiative at the NATO Summit this year. However, there seems to be a lack of general prioritization by the EU as a whole. It is true that a lack of industrial capacity plays a role in Europe’s ability to produce these systems. However, a good part of the industrial power Europe does possess should be devoted to the development of European deep-strike capabilities.
Strategic enablers
Despite the progress achieved since 2022, Europeans continue to rely heavily on the United States for the critical capabilities that condition any large-scale military operation, including for strategic intelligence, satellite surveillance, air-to-air refueling, strategic lift, missile defense, cyber defense, and integrated command structures. Possessing sovereign European strategic enablers would make it possible to conduct operations without the approval or essential logistical support of a third party. The roadmap does not place a particular emphasis on the development of these capabilities, except through the capability coalitions and the inherent inclusion of these capabilities in flagships such as the European Air Shield. While these capabilities will take longer to develop than others, it is important that they are still prioritized if Europe is to take primary responsibility for its own defense. Furthermore, producing these technologies locally strengthens the European defense industrial and technological base. Joint investments also avoid the fragmentation of efforts among member states. Reducing structural US dependencies and restoring a more balanced partnership with Washington would not only strengthen Europe’s strategic autonomy and resilience but will also enhance its credibility vis-à-vis systemic competitors such as Russia and China.
Why Europe shouldn’t try to replace the US entirely
It is equally important that Europe maintains focus on these key capability gaps and does not get lost in trying to replace the US entirely. Artificial intelligence and cloud capabilities constitute an example of gaps where Europe should not look to reinvent the wheel. The US has not indicated that the wholesale provision of AI and cloud services are under review at this time, as it has with air and missile defense and other more conventional capabilities. Though the US Department of Commerce issued a decision in June 2026 to require export licenses for advanced AI models, this reflects a standard practice of subjecting dual-use sensitive technology to case-by-case licensing under the Export Administration Regulations and Export Control Reform Acts. These authorities have long been used to restrict the export of advanced semiconductors, encryption, and other military adjacent technologies. There is nothing characteristic about AI that places it outside this established regime, beyond the fact that it is the current frontier technology drawing the most national security scrutiny. Furthermore, under the current administration and likely under future administrations as well, there is little incentive for the US government to intervene on who private tech companies take on as customers, particularly with America’s alliances.
While the EU certainly has aspirations in the AI space, it should not take time and resources to duplicate capabilities the US has not indicated it will reallocate. Instead, the EU and member states should channel these aspirations into capability gaps that will certainly need to be addressed today and in the future, such as those detailed above. Doing so may actually mitigate the risk of the US restricting AI access more broadly in the future. The demonstration of increased burden-sharing amongst European allies could incentivize the US to continue to work productively with Europe on advanced technologies. This would increase European AI capabilities and bring Europe closer to its goal of developing sovereign AI capabilities. The US has repeatedly emphasized that its current review of its role in Europe constitutes a rebalancing of responsibilities in the transatlantic space, as opposed to a retreat from European security entirely. The EU should respond accordingly when prioritizing capability development, with a specific focus on how to best allocate limited resources.
Conclusion
The roadmap represents the major steps Europe has taken to address the gaps in what it needs to take on the primary defense of the European continent at lightning speed. Europe must maintain focus on the initiatives and should further refine its prioritization of these projects. The roadmap has provided a good structure for the EU over the last year, but there must be an increased focus on the execution of these initiatives, as those that have been executed have proven to be successful. The EU and member states should continue to work together to stay on track with the roadmap’s deliverables to ensure Europe’s security today and in the future.
Full list of roadmap deliverables and their status
Milestones taken from the EU’s Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030.
About the authors
Eva Mulholland is a project assistant with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.
Aurélie Vittot is a visiting fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center currently in residence from the French Ministry of Armed Forces. Before her current role, Vittot worked for the French Ministry of Armed Forces’ Directorate General for International Relations and Strategy.
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