European defense ministers are working on schemes to establish a joint drone wall across the eastern border of NATO in response to a significant increase in aerial incursions.
The representatives of Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined in a video meeting with representatives of other EU countries, Ukraine, and NATO, and were led by the EU Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius.
Recent incidents, including NATO fighter jets scrambling to intercept Russian drones infringing on Polish airspace and reports of drones causing temporary airport closures in Denmark, have prompted urgent discussions.
The program is to create a single system of drone interception and neutralisation of small, cheap drones, which pose a disproportionate threat to conventional air defences.
It revolves around the process of sealing the critical lapses in the surveillance and response efforts in the eastern front of the alliance.
One of these challenges is funding; the European Commission denied a combined submission by Estonia and Lithuania in March, and one of the meeting's objectives was to find new funding avenues to the project.
The idea has been strongly supported by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who stated that Europe can not ignore the call of its Baltic friends and create a drone wall.
She termed the project the foundation of a plausible defence and noted that it should be a capability built, deployed and maintained collectively.
The drone wall pushes the last in a larger initiative to strengthen European defence, which involves a different 6-billion-euro program to set up a drone coalition with Ukraine.
The results of the discussions held on Friday will be presented by the leaders of the EU at a summit in Copenhagen next week marking a major step towards establishing a more integrated and technologically advanced network of air defence in Europe.