France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom agreed to work together to develop low cost autonomous drones as NATO takes on more responsibility for its security. Defense ministers from the five countries — the group known as the E5 because they represent Europe’s biggest defense powers — will launch an initiative called Low Cost Effectors and Autonomous Platforms (LEAP) with the goal of producing drones within a year.
U.K. Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard said the nations’ primary objective is to produce “effectors,” according to Reuters. Effectors act on a target, such as the explosive payload of a drone or missile. “We’re really hopeful that this will produce an effector that … will be in production within 12 months,” Pollard said after ministers met in Krakow, Poland, in February 2026.
The LEAP initiative joins several European efforts to build a “drone wall” after Russian incursions into European airspace. The effort also answers United States’ calls for NATO nations to assume more responsibility for their own defense.
Pollard described LEAP as a call to arms for defense industries across all five nations and characterized the initiative as a multimillion pound and multimillion-euro commitment from the E5.
During airspace incursions across Europe in 2025, NATO used multimillion dollar warplanes to shoot down drones costing thousands of dollars.
“We have some of the best [equipment] on the entire planet for shooting down air threats,” Pollard said, according to the AP. “The problem is to be effective at shooting down relatively low-cost missiles, drones and other threats facing us. We need to make sure that we’re matching the cost of the threats with the cost of defense.”
The U.K. Ministry of Defence announced that LEAP initially will focus on developing a lightweight, affordable surface to air weapon to counter threats. The ministry said LEAP will prioritize speed and adaptability and will draw proposals from major defense manufacturers as well as small and medium sized companies. The initiative draws inspiration from Ukraine’s battlefield innovation, according to a news release.
“This is the challenge of our times — technologies are changing … and we must respond very quickly,” Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said, according to Reuters.