5 NATO allies agree to produce low-cost drones

Germany, France, Italy, Poland and the U.K. on Friday said they would work to jointly develop new low-cost autonomous drones as NATO scrambles to bolster its air defenses against Russia.

Defense ministers from the five countries — known as the E5 — said they would launch an initiative called Low-Cost Effectors and Autonomous Platforms (LEAP) with the aim of producing drones within a year.

“Collectively, we have some of the best kit on the entire planet for shooting down air threats,” British Deputy Defense Minister Luke Pollard told reporters after a meeting in Kraków, Poland. “We feel confident that this is the very first step of what we hope will be a series of initiatives.”

The drone program “provides a call to arms for our defense industries in every single one of the five nations to respond to the challenge,” Pollard said.

The initiative reflects a growing concern around protecting Europe’s skies, after a series of air incursions across NATO last year that ranged from Russian fighter jets over Estonia to swarms of drones entering Polish airspace. Although NATO neutralized the threats, it drew criticism for scrambling multimillion-dollar fighter jets to shoot down drones costing thousands of dollars.

“The problem is to be effective at shooting down relatively low-cost missiles, drones and other threats facing us,” Pollard told reporters. “We need to make sure that we’re matching the cost of the threats with the cost of defense,” he said, adding that the drone initiative entailed a new “multimillion-euro” commitment from the five countries.

The scheme will primarily aim to produce effectors for drones, Pollard said, a military term for the part of the equipment that acts on a target, such as the explosive payload.

It also comes as part of Europe’s broader drive to become responsible for its own defense, amid intense pressure from the Trump administration and doubts around Washington’s commitment to NATO.

“Europe … is motivated to move forward on defense,” Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said.