Signal No. 182 · Commission says 2030 defence readiness is at risk

The Commission adopted its work programme for 2027 on Wednesday. Its defence chapter says that, despite the decisions and money of recent years, "the 2030 defence readiness objective is at risk". It commits to air and missile defence, drone and counter-drone systems and ammunition, to the EU–Ukraine Defence Industrial Pact and to a "cost-effective and modular air defence system" developed with Ukraine. It will set up a European Instrument for Strategic Enablers, from strategic transport and air-to-air refuelling to space and cyber defence. It says that the EU "should set up" a European Security Emergency Protocol so that a member state facing "a direct and credible threat" gets "a swift and common European response", that the mutual-assistance clause, Article 42(7) of the Treaty on European Union, "should be further operationalised", and that it will explore a European Security Council with its closest partners.

Annex I, which lists each new initiative with its legal form and a target quarter, carries two entries under the defence heading: an update of visa rules and legislation on police data exchange with countries outside the Union. Neither the enablers instrument nor the protocol appears there. Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission president, announced both in her State of the Union address on 16 September without a figure, a legal base or a date. The European Defence Agency's first Annual Defence Readiness Report, presented to defence ministers in late September and not published, found that member states' plans did not seem to meet the 2030 goal in five capability areas, according to its executive summary as Reuters reported it.

On Tuesday Inatsisartut, Greenland's parliament, adopted at second reading the agreement that amends and supplements the 1951 defence agreement with the United States. Sixteen members voted for it, from Inuit Ataqatigiit, Demokraatit and Atassut, plus one independent; seven voted neither for nor against. Siumut did not take part, citing members absent through travel and illness; Erik Jensen, one of its members, told Sermitsiaq the party backs the agreement fully. Signed at the United Nations on 22 September, the agreement lets Washington establish a further defence area at Narsarsuaq and Mestersvig and bars states outside NATO from a military presence on the island unless the parties agree.

The majority of the foreign and security policy committee — Demokraatit, Inuit Ataqatigiit and Atassut — recommended adoption in its report of 29 October. It asks the Greenland government to set up a political follow-up group of all parties in parliament "to ensure broad political involvement in drafting the supplementary agreements", and to report to parliament on implementation at least once a year. It also wants the cooperation to bring jobs, work for Greenlandic firms and facilities with civilian as well as military use. Naleraq, in a minority statement, said its criticism concerns "the agreement's concrete result for Greenland, not the cooperation as such"; the party had asked for direct US payment and for a referendum.

Democrats have won control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, flipping seven Republican seats in the Senate, according to NPR's tally of the Associated Press's race calls. The new Congress sits from January.

The House passed its 2027 defence authorisation bill on 22 July, 216 to 212, with a section that carries into 2027 the bar on taking US forces in Europe below 76,000 without certification and assessments to Congress. In the Senate, a cloture vote on proceeding to its own bill failed on 14 July, 50 to 46, and the Congressional Research Service's September update records no further step. Since fiscal 1977 the act has been enacted on average 45 days after the fiscal year begins, CRS notes; this year that point falls in mid-November.