Foreign Affairs Council (Defence), 15 October 2025

Main results

The Foreign Affairs Council with defence ministers held a discussion on the upcoming EU defence readiness roadmap, which is expected to provide clear objectives and goals, as well as concrete milestones on how to achieve EU defence readiness by 2030.

The roadmap will be adopted by the College of Commissioners on 16 October, and be presented by the High Representative and the Commission to the next European Council on 23 October 2025.

The Council discussion focused in particular on: (i) how to close military capability shortfalls as quickly and efficiently as possible, (ii) which pan-European flagship projects to focus time and resources on, and (iii) how to enhance cooperation with Ukraine even further.

This is a roadmap with concrete objectives, concrete goals and concrete milestones on how to achieve defence readiness by 2030. Of course, there is a lead nations concept, so that member states are in the lead of these different nine capability areas.
[…] What is extremely important is the issue of drones and how we can really defend Europe from drone attacks, as it is clear for every member state that the drones could come from anywhere.

Kaja Kallas, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and President of the Foreign Affairs Council

• Boosting European defence expenditure (background information)
• EU defence in numbers (background information)