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Tarja Jaakkola

Assistant Secretary General for Defence Industry, Innovation and Armaments
NATO

About Speaker

Tarja Jaakkola is NATO´s Assistant Secretary General for Defence Industry, Innovation and Armaments, the division that leads on the rapid development and delivery of cutting-edge and interoperable defence capabilities, working with industry and innovation ecosystems across the Alliance to meet NATO’s deterrence and defence needs. Before her current position, Tarja worked as Director General, Resource Policy Department in the Finnish Ministry of Defence and as Finnish National Armaments Director. From 2018 until late 2022 she held the position of Director of the Materiel Unit and Deputy National Armaments Director. From October 2011 to September 2017 Tarja worked in the European Defence Agency in Brussels. She initially held the position of Assistant Director of the Industry and Market Directorate, and from 2014 onwards she worked in the European Synergies and Innovation Directorate as Deputy Director and the Head of Industry Strategy and wider EU Policies Unit. Tarja has previously held different positions within the Ministry of Defence of Finland and Finnish Defence Forces with various armaments, defence industry and market related responsibilities. She has also served as a judge at the City Court of Helsinki, Senior Advisor at the Finnish Rail Administration and attorney-at-law. Ms. Jaakkola received her Master of Laws Degree from Helsinki University.

Speaker

The Backbone of Deterrence: Europe’s Warfighting Base

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
Panel Session Defence
Thursday, 21. 5. 2026
15:10–16:05 CEST
Havel Stage

The Swarm Age: Is Europe Ready for AI-Powered Drone Warfare?

In cooperation with DIGITALEUROPE

From Ukraine to the Middle East, drones and counter-drone capabilities are reshaping conflict. Low-cost autonomous and semi-autonomous systems can increasingly threaten high-value military assets and put critical infrastructure at risk. Energy facilities, ports, airports and logistics hubs are becoming part of the battlespace. A deeper transformation is also underway: warfare is shifting from a small number of sophisticated platforms towards autonomy, intelligent mass, speed and adaptability, driven by AI-enabled systems, advanced sensors and secure connectivity. Europe has world-class technologies, strong defence industrial actors and a dynamic innovation ecosystem. Building on initiatives such as the multinational priority capability area on drones and counter-drones led by the Netherlands, governments, the defence industry and technology innovators must now accelerate joint efforts to close the gap between prototype and fielded capability — and build the ecosystem Europe needs for the next era of drone and autonomous warfare.
  • How must military doctrine, supply chains and skills evolve when cheap autonomous systems can neutralise billion-euro capabilities?
  • Europe has the technology but still struggles to deploy at scale. Can initiatives like the Dutch-led priority capability area on drones and counter-drones unlock faster testing, procurement and industrial scaling?
  • As warfare shifts from human-piloted systems to AI-enabled swarm operations, who will design and control the command architectures that manage autonomous systems at the speed of modern conflict?

Executive Summary

Technology is not the constraint. Swarmer has demonstrated AI-enabled swarm autonomy, and Sateliot has demonstrated 5G space connectivity superior to existing GNSS by three orders of magnitude.  It is the procurement timelines, accreditation fragmentation, absent spectrum sovereignty and a financing ecosystem still dependent on US capital that are preventing deployment at the speed the threat demands. Brigadier General Rietbergen's proposal for a network of drone technology hubs where companies can test, fail, iterate and access contracts without waiting for a perfect system was endorsed by all panellists as the most practical near-term structural response. Tarja Jaakkola provided the NATO complement: innovation ranges, framework contracts under NCIA and a new approach to procurement that pays for production capacity and innovation capability rather than discrete system acquisitions. Serhii Kupriienko mentioned that the underlying challenge is the battlefield that is already too fast and too complicated for humans to manage. Autonomous systems directing autonomous systems is inevitable, and the question is whether democratic societies build that capability transparently and traceably, or leave it to actors who will not.

Livestream Link:  https://youtube.com/live/OVjXKk22LNM?feature=share
Panel Session GeoTech Summit Defence
Friday, 22. 5. 2026
09:00–09:50 CEST
Schwarzenberg Stage

Stocktaking the EU: Industrial Policy for Defence, Investment and Innovation

Organized in cooperation with Think Tank EUROPA and DEUSS 

Active industrial policy has emerged as the European Commission’s central response to mounting challenges related to competitiveness, decarbonisation, and defence. Yet, the first wave of initiatives remains heavily skewed towards legacy industries, relies primarily on relaxed state aid rules, and faces challenges in mobilising sufficient private capital due to fragmented capital markets and limited financial instruments for strategic, capital-intensive sectors. This side session will convene a high-level discussion on how to design a European industrial policy that genuinely unlocks innovation, strengthens European resilience, and ensures that investment frameworks effectively support both industrial and defence scale-up. 

Bringing together leading European voices from clean tech, digital technologies, and defence, the session will explore which technologies the EU should prioritise to reinforce its global agency, which policy tools best support innovation in fast-moving and capital-intensive sectors, and how financial frameworks can mobilise private capital for strategic mid-sized enterprises. In this context, the session will also highlight emerging models such as the DEUSS (Digital Euro-denominated SME Securities) project, developed in cooperation with the European Commission and Member States, which leverages blockchain infrastructure to issue and trade digital bonds for SMEs. By reducing market entry barriers and channeling private savings into strategic sectors – including the defence – such approaches point to innovative pathways for strengthening Europe’s financing and industrial capacity. 

The side session will provide an opportunity to take stock of the Commission’s progress across key policy agendas, with a special focus on the EU’s industrial policy and investment policy for defence. 

Side session Economy Defence
Friday, 22. 5. 2026
10:00–11:30 CEST
Palmovka 3

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