Sittings · Document
Follow up to the European Parliament non-legislative resolution on a united response to recent Russian violations of the EU Member States’ airspace and critical infrastructure
Resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 136(2) of the European Parliament's Rules of procedure
References: 2025/2901(RSP) / B10-0419/2025 / P10_TA(2025)0230
Date of adoption of the resolution: 9 October 2025
Competent Parliamentary Committee: /
Brief analysis/ assessment of the resolution and requests made in it:
The resolution expresses full solidarity with all Member States exposed to Russia’s direct and escalatory threats and acts of hybrid warfare, threatening European citizens, and calls for increased cooperation, unity and enhanced coordination and detection. It welcomes the response by NATO forces and encourages the EU’s future actions against similar violations. It calls on the Council and the Commission to increase the effectiveness of sanctions on Russia, Russia’s shadow fleet and against its supporters and to penalize those violating them. It urges the integration towards a European Defence Union and building on and going further than current frameworks such as provided in the White Paper for European Defence – Readiness 2030. Notes that the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP) legislation should be implemented swiftly. It welcomes the use of the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument, the Defence Equity Facility, the drone initiative, the Eastern Flank Watch initiative, the role of the Drone Coalition in the standardisation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAVs) and calls on the Commission to present a coherent plan at the European Council meeting on 23-24 October 2025. Lessons learned from Ukraine should be considered.
Response to the requests in the resolution and overview of the action taken, or intended to be taken, by the Commission:
On paragraph 4, the Commission and the High Representative /Vice-President underline that since 2014 the Council adopted numerous packages of sanctions, targeting Russian ability to continue waging the war against Ukraine, including by targeting its sources of revenue and its supply lines.
On 23 October 2025, the EU adopted the 19th sanctions package against Russia, which targeted key sectors fuelling Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, in particular energy, finance, and the military industrial complex, including on third countries enablers. The package also imposed additional sanctions on critical shadow fleet networks, notably on vessels, enablers and buyers in third countries such as China. After the adoption of further designations in December 2025, the EU has now sanctioned more than 50 shadow fleet enablers and nearly 600 vessels. Work has already begun on the 20th sanctions package.
The Commission and the High Representative /Vice-President also recall that, in October 2024 a new framework for restrictive measures in view of Russia’s destabilising activities was adopted by the Council. These new sanctions regime aims to address hybrid actions against the EU, its Member States, partner states, as well as international organisations and bodies. Following the latest round of designations on 15 December 2025, there are currently 59 individuals and 17 entities included on the list of persons subject to restrictive measures. In May 2025 the Council added a possibility to target tangible assets which are used for activities of destabilising character. That may include vessels, aircraft, real estate, ports, airports, and physical elements of digital and communication networks. It should be noted that each Member State is responsible for implementing and enforcing sanctions on their territory.
On paragraph 6, the Commission recalls that countering hybrid threats is a primary responsibility of the Member States, whose security (in terrestrial, aerial, maritime and digital domains) is a primary sovereign competence. Due to the cross-border nature of these hybrid threats, the Commission and the High Representative /Vice-President support the Member States and have put in place a range of policies and instruments. Those actions will follow the Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030 flagship instruments, such as European Eastern Flank Watch and European Drone Defence Initiative, aiming to assist the coordination and to boost the EU defence industry technological base via supporting actions in domains of companies, industry, innovations and joint procurement. This will aim to help Member States enhance their situational awareness and monitoring capacity, strengthen their resilience, develop and implement an effective deterrence by cost imposition to tackle hybrid threats, all in close coordination and joint action with partners, notably NATO. Any proposal for such an escalation ladder will have to be discussed with the Council.
On paragraph 7, the Commission took action on 3 December 2025 to preserve the integrity of the EU financial system by proposing to add Russia to the EU list of high-risk jurisdictions presenting strategic deficiencies in their national anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) regimes. The Delegated Regulation accomplishing this was subject to a period of scrutiny and non-objection of the European Parliament and the Council for one month. None of the co-legislators objected, and so the Delegated Regulation entered into application on 29 January 2026.
The Commission shares the concerns expressed by the European Parliament in paragraph 8 regarding the disruptions to Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) services, which have far-reaching economic and societal consequences, including a significant negative impact on aviation and maritime safety. In light of actions that led to the condemnation of Russia by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Assembly and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Commission is prepared to continue collaborating with Member States to escalate pressure on Russia by addressing the issue at the international level, including initiatives within UN agencies. Merely defending the EU values in international forums is insufficient, as this challenge is fundamentally an EU issue. Consequently, the Commission and the European External Action Service (EEAS) are developing a comprehensive EU action plan in response to requests made by several Member States in June 2025. The aviation part of this plan, to be prepared together with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and EUROCONTROL and in consultation with relevant stakeholders, is expected to focus on actions aimed at guaranteeing safety and minimising the impact on capacity in the short term while enhancing resilience to interference in the medium and long term.
On paragraph 13, the Commission recalls that it works closely with the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group to provide financing to the EU defence industry. In line with the calls made by the Commission, such as in the European Defence Industrial Strategy, since 2024 the EIB Group progressively increases its support to this sector, including by adapting its exclusion policy. In 2026 the EIB will invest EUR 4.5 billion in support of security and defence, corresponding to 5% of EIB’s total financing within the EU. The Commission partnered with the European Investment Fund (EIF) to set up the Defence Equity Facility, a EUR 175 million instrument under InvestEU supporting the development of an ecosystem of private funds investing in defence. In the Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030, the Commission announced that, together with EIB/EIF, it would create an up to EUR 1 billion Fund of funds (equity) supporting the fast growth of defence-related scale-ups and defence related projects – by the first quarter of 2026.
On paragraphs 14 and 15, the Commission recalls that Member States will decide on the scope, format, content, and schedule of possible flagships. The Joint Communication of 16 October 2025 on Preserving peace - Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030 invites Member States to agree on the appropriate coordination arrangements by Spring 2026, with support from the Commission, the High Representative and other EU actors, including the European Defence Agency. Progress on each flagship will be monitored in the Annual Defence Readiness Report.
The European Drone Defence Initiative will be designed with a 360° approach, as a multi-layered, technologically advanced system with interoperable counter-drone capabilities for detection, tracking, and neutralisation, as well as capabilities to hit ground targets by leveraging drone technology for precision strikes. The counter drone capacity should be fully interoperable and connected among Member States providing European situational awareness and ability to act together and secure critical infrastructure together with NATO. The Eastern Flank Watch will integrate the air defence and counter-drone systems with a set of ground defence systems with maritime security in the Baltic and Black Seas and systems for increased situational awareness, as well as internal security and border management.
In addition, the Commission is engaging actively with the European defence industrial ecosystem on drones and counter-drone solutions. On 28 November 2025, an industrial roundtable was organised, bringing together primes, mid-caps, Small and Mediums Entreprises (SMEs), start-ups and scale-ups across the EU and Ukraine. The roundtable aimed to achieve three key objectives: understanding the industry's current capacities, identifying main bottlenecks, and collecting concrete proposals to enhance interoperability. Furthermore, on the same day, the Commission hosted the launch event of the EU Defence Innovation Scheme (EUDIS) Tech Alliances, which aims to bring together new defence actors (particularly start-ups and SMEs, including dual use ones) and Member States. Additionally, the Commission plans to conduct an industrial mapping of drones and anti-drone systems in 2026. Furthermore, in July 2025 the European Commission together with Ukraine has announced an establishment of BraveTechEU, a joint initiative to boost defence innovation under EDF and learn from Ukrainian defence tech experience. The EDIP programme will include a Ukraine Support Instrument, which will be instrumental not only to the implementation of BraveTechEU, but also flagship projects under EDPCIs.
On paragraph 25, the Commission shares the Parliament's assessment of Russia's hybrid warfare and recalls that its Communication “ProtectEU - a European Internal Security Strategy” identified hybrid threats among the key security threats faced by the Union. The Commission is committed to ensure its swift implementation to upgrade the Union’s capacity to anticipate, prevent and respond to security threats, as well as to strengthen resilience across Member States. Both ProtectEU and the Preparedness Union Strategy emphasise notably the urgent need for Member States to fully transpose and implement the Directive on the resilience of critical entities (CER Directive) and the NIS2 Directive. In this context, the Commission has launched infringement proceedings against those Member States that failed to notify national transposition measures and continues to provide support and guidance to Member States and operators for the correct implementation of the directive(s).
Air transport services with Russia and with several other third countries such as China, which are referred to in paragraph 26, are regulated by bilateral air service agreements between Member States and those countries. As regards measures to stop benefits from “overflight fees”, it is important to recall that the Commission has deemed these “overflight fees” (or “royalties”) in the Member States’ bilateral agreements with Russia illegal and that infringement proceedings against our Member States are ongoing, albeit currently dormant in light of the ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine and the resulting sanctions regime. As regards the re-examination of bilateral agreements with China, the Commission remains ready to engage with Member States to coordinate a common approach and to continue enforcing robust sanctions against Russia's aviation sector. The Commission has also drawn attention to the safety risks of operating in the Russian airspace as outlined in the Conflict Zone Information Bulletin issued by EASA and also stands ready to coordinate with Member States the information on risks to be provided to European passengers.
The Commission is concerned by the multiple recent incidents involving unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), commonly known as ‘drones’, which can be used for espionage, attacks and illegal trafficking. It actively monitors technology developments and threat evolution. As announced in European Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030 (JOIN(2025) 27) and in its Communication on countering potential threats posed by drones (COM(2023) 659), the Commission continues to support Member States, facilitating sharing of best practices and of information related to drone incidents, testing counter-UAS technologies, delivering counter-UAS training for law enforcement and working on the development of voluntary performance requirements for counter-UAS systems. In this regard, ProtectEU contains additional proposals to increase response capacity, notably upgrading the existing JRC living lab into a Counter-Drone Centre of Excellence, assessing the harmonisation of Member States’ laws and procedures for the use of counter-drone systems, and working on the development of a harmonised testing methodology for counter-drone systems.