PARIS — European sovereignty in defense and security is within reach and would require investing around €50 billion (US$59 billion) a year for the next decade, according to a paper by five prominent German defense investors, experts and industry executives.
The paper identified ten key areas where Europe faces strategic capability gaps, including command and control, autonomous systems and deep strike. Reaching defense autonomy would cost an estimated €150 billion to €200 billion by 2030, and €500 billion over the next decade, according to the paper published by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
Germany and Europe depend on the United States across the entire military-effect chain, from satellite-based reconnaissance to battlefield fire control, according to the paper dubbed Sparta 2.0. Current plans by European countries for significantly higher defense spending only provide “modest” gains in European independence, the authors said.
“A high degree of European independence can be achieved within a few years, at a cost that can be financed through the planned budget increases,” President of the German Council on Foreign Relations and former Airbus CEO Thomas Enders, one of the authors, said in a statement on Thursday. “Ukraine shows us that this does not take decades.”
In addition to Enders, the paper was signed by Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, president of venture-capital firm General Catalyst; economist Moritz Schularick, the president of the Kiel Institute; Airbus Chairman and former Deutsche Telekom CEO René Obermann; and security analyst and former defense staffer Nico Lange.
“A substantial part of the identified capability gaps can be addressed within a few years, provided that the appropriate political prioritization is in place,” the authors wrote. “The prerequisite is that Europe understands the strategic dimension of its defense challenge as its ‘Manhattan Project.’”
Substantial progress toward autonomous European capacity to act is realistic within three to five years, while “far-reaching autonomy” is achievable within five to 10 years, on condition that goal is pursued as a political priority within a joint European effort, the paper said.
Financing Europe’s sovereignty is achievable with around 10% of total European defense spending, with the expenditure required over the next decade corresponding to about 0.25% of GDP, according to the five authors.
The paper identified “ten central capability gaps” Europe needs to plug to be able to act autonomously. Cost estimates for programs proposed in the paper are “necessarily subject to considerable uncertainty,” with deviations in the range of 20% to 30% to be expected, the authors said.
Establishing a European command-and-control capability could take three to four years and would cost anywhere from €10 billion to €20-plus billion, according to the paper. Europe lacks a counterpart to U.S. defense-technology company Palantir, and building a sovereign European C2 and battle-management system is a priority, using Ukraine’s Delta system as a reference.
Europe has largely missed Ukraine’s paradigm shift to drone-dominated warfare, and building sufficient capacity in scaled autonomous systems could take three to five years, with a price tag of €30 billion or more.
Action points include setting up mass-production capacity for several million drones and loitering munitions per year, according to the report. Another line of action would be to set up a major development program for unmanned ground vehicles involving the German automotive industry, land-systems makers and AI startups, and designed for serial production.
Ground-based deep precision strike is another capability gap that could be filled in three to five years, within a cost envelope of €20 billion to €30 billion. Sixth-generation air combat systems would take 10 years or more and cost at least €200 billion, with that estimate including funding for two parallel sixth-generation development programs.
Europe has a gap in air defense, particularly in affordable, large-scale counter-drone and short-range capability at the level of brigades, assets and infrastructure, according to the paper. Ballistic missile defense “remains an equally critical gap.” Initial operating effectiveness in air defense could take three to five years, while “full build-out” that includes next-generation autonomous interceptors might require five to 10 years, for a total cost envelope of €50 billion.
The paper also mentioned satellite reconnaissance, communications as well as positioning, navigation and timing as a capability gap, with the number one priority to build a European equivalent to Starlink.
Other identified priority capability gaps are space launch; persistent airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; military cloud, software and AI; strategic airlift and military-operational support; as well as electronic warfare and suppression of enemy air defenses.
Implementation should run through lead coalitions of countries, rather than a “new European super-structure,” according to the authors.
Europe further needs a paradigm shift in areas such as procurement, with prototype competitions rather than starting with hundreds of pages of specifications, the paper said. Contracts should reward outcomes rather than provide input specifications, focus on production capacity rather than number of units procured, while barriers to new entrants should be low, according to the authors.
“Ukraine shows that a broad supplier landscape combining established and new actors is more resilient, faster and more cost-effective than relying on a few large prime contractors,” the five authors wrote.
Europe has the financial means, industrial base and technology to overcome its strategic dependencies, and the bottleneck is political will to coordinate, prioritize and break with “decades of fragmentation.”
“We are convinced that Europe’s security will be decided by technological superiority and by the willingness to invest massively where it counts,” the authors said. “If we build the central capabilities at the right place, Europe can protect itself against aggressors and produce credible deterrence.”
Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.
