Presentation of Annual Battle Readiness on the Eastern Flank Report by Martin Sklenár, Former Minister of Defence of Slovakia & Distinguished Fellow, GLOBSEC Europe’s deterrence depends not only on forces in the field but on the industrial backbone that sustains them. The war in Ukraine has revealed structural weaknesses - fragmented production, limited surge capacity, and uneven industrial cooperation. To achieve credible readiness by 2030, NATO and EU Allies must strengthen industrial resilience and interoperability across borders, linking production capacity directly to operational readiness.
- Can Europe scale defence production, maintenance, and sustainment rapidly enough to meet long-term readiness and deterrence requirements?
- How effectively are NATO and EU frameworks aligning industrial capabilities with operational defence needs to ensure interoperability across borders?
- To what extent can Europe build a self-sufficient defence industrial base, and what role will partnerships, allied value chains, and selective decoupling from adversaries play in meeting long-term deterrence requirements?
- Can Europe achieve this level of industrial resilience independently, or will it remain reliant on partnerships, allied value chains, and selective decoupling from adversaries?
Executive Summary This session combined the launch of GLOBSEC's first Battle Readiness on the Eastern Flank report with a panel discussion that was unusually frank about the gap between what Europe says it is doing on defence and what it is actually delivering. GLOBSEC’s report findings established the baseline: capabilities are improving, defence budgets are rising, but political predictability varies sharply across the region, and deterrence is built in capitals, not in Brussels. Derk Boswijk offered the session's most pointed analysis: Europe promised Ukraine one million shells and delivered half. Marcel Grisnigt described KNDS's practical response: converting automotive and railway facilities to defence production within twelve months, building coalitions between large primes and small innovative companies, and insisting on open architecture as the technical prerequisite for embedding new technologies into existing systems. Tarja Jaakkola outlined NATO's industrial match-making role, including the innovation scale-up package designed to help technology start-ups with solutions but without production capacity find civilian manufacturing partners. Nuno Torres made the argument that for countries geographically distant from the Eastern Flank, contribution to European defence must be understood through the lens of maritime security, Atlantic supply lines and the full alliance area — not merely proximity to Russia. The session closed on a shared conclusion: the new chapter is execution, and the Ankara summit will be judged by whether it produces a credible answer to that challenge.
Livestream Link: https://youtube.com/live/mrp0AuIAZlo?feature=share
