The European Defence Agency (EDA) must go beyond its role as a supporter of EU cooperation to a leadership role, especially in innovation, Head of EDA and High Representative Kaja Kallas, told the Agency's 2026 Annual Conference.
Member States must give the Agency the power to do more, Kallas said, recalling EU leaders’ call in 2025 to strengthen EDA.
“This is also an open message for Member States: if you want a strong EDA, provide the necessary means,” Kallas told the more than 400 participants at the Concert Noble in Brussels. “If we want to translate our political ambition into operational capability, EDA needs to lead, not just facilitate. You need to act, not just advise.”
Kallas called on Member States to make the Agency “a true EU hub of defence innovation, including by supporting next generation and disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence.”
EDA Chief Executive André Denk told the conference that the Agency, which is owned and funded by the EU’s 27 Member States, will come forward in the coming days with proposals to strengthen operations. “What we are proposing is a new, re-engineered agency — the new EDA," he said.
Denk said areas to be expanded would be those in EDA’s core tasks, including preparing joint procurement to increase the effectiveness of public spending, developing new military capabilities together, and innovation — from the lab to testing to field use.
Andrius Kubilius, EU Commissioner for Defence and Space, threw his support behind a stronger EU defence. “Europe has the potential to become a defence giant,” he said.
Strategic autonomy
A stronger EDA has the support of EU Member States, Pål Jonson, Sweden’s Minister of Defence, and Jens Plötner, Germany’s State Secretary for Defence, told the conference.
“Hard core defence will remain intergovernmental,” Plötner said. Cypriot Minister of Defence Vasilis Palmas, whose country holds the rotating EU Presidency of the Council, said his government would make a “particular effort” to strengthen EDA over the next six months.
Jonson and Plötner said missile defence should be a priority for EU defence. Both urged more emphasis on space, as well as continuing to learn from Ukraine’s fast cycles of innovation.
Jonson said money was less of an issue in the past, with Sweden’s defence budget tripling compared to 2018. But he urged the EU and NATO to invest in European ground forces to be able to potentially hold ground for longer periods. “We do also have a challenge across Europe. When there was very little money for defence, we cut down on ground forces, we cut down on sustainment, logistics, spare parts, ammunition.”
Other challenges were raised during the conference. Belgium echoed EDA Chief Executive Denk in calling for strategic autonomy for the EU, but said that smaller EU countries would still need to rely on larger EU Member States’ willingness to work together. “We are part of a bigger whole, and so we need standardisation. Without it, that makes it impossible for our smaller, innovative companies to participate,” said Joachim Pohlmann, Head of Cabinet of Belgium’s Minister of Defence.