KEY MESSAGES
- Energy security is an indispensable component of national and collective defence, and NATO’s target to allocate up to 1.5% of GDP to defence-related investments provides a critical opportunity to strengthen the resilience, protection and preparedness of Europe’s energy systems.
- Crisis management and preparedness measures, including stockpiling critical components, enhancing repair and reconstruction capabilities, and conducting regular joint crisis exercises, are essential to ensuring rapid recovery and continuity of energy supply during hybrid or kinetic attacks.
- Protecting critical energy infrastructure requires both immediate tactical defences and long-term strategic safeguards, combining physical protection, cyber resilience, redundancy, drone-defence tools and “secure-by-design” principles integrated from the earliest stages of planning and development.
- Robust cybersecurity and secure, independent communication systems are vital to protecting energy operations, countering misinformation, supporting remote management, coordinating emergency responses and strengthening cooperation between private operators, public authorities and military actors.
- Prioritising clean energy, electrification and resilient infrastructure within the 1.5% defence-related investment reinforces Europe’s strategic autonomy, reduces exposure to hostile fossil-fuel dependencies, enhances societal resilience and aligns defence imperatives with long-term competitiveness and sustainability goals.