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Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
From pandemics to power outages, and from war to wheat, Brussels is trying to get ready for the next big shock and make sure Europe isn’t caught scrambling.
A stockpiling strategy paper out Wednesday aims to pull together plans for everything from vaccines and antibiotics to missiles and lithium, with an eye on building out what the Commission has already titled a “Preparedness Union.”
The goal is to frame thinking ahead of the next major crisis, tying together what's needed to keep Europeans fed, in good health and well defended. What's more, the paper – one of what the EU executive says will be around 30 across various sectors – pulls in efforts to build up reserves of critical raw materials needed for industry to keep making strategic high-tech products.
Here's what you need to know:
Well-stocked silos
One of the strategy's chapters, dubbed "civil-military cooperation", calls for enhanced information-sharing between EU countries and the Commission to plan. To this end, the EU executive will "facilitate discussions" between capitals to ensure civilian stockpiles are sufficient to meet military needs.But the separate €1.5 billion European Defence Industrial Programme (EDIP), would remain the blueprint for stockpiling defence-related items, with mechanisms to act when supply crises arise.
That could apply to ammunition, missile or air defence systems, for example.
The problem is that information around military and security-related stocks is "highly sensitive", one senior EU official told the press on Tuesday, and EU countries can be reluctant to share classified details which would help Brussels figure out what's needed in silos.
“We have limited information at this stage about national stockpiles," the official added, which is why the Commission does not set a deadline to draw up lists. A timeline for doing that would depend on the capitals' willingness to exchange information.
Safe and sound
Alongside the main stockpile strategy, the Commission also presented a medical countermeasures paper to specifically prepare for future health emergencies, such as another pandemic.The EU executive wants to propose a list of recommended national stocks, including vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and PPE such as masks. There will be a new “robust intelligence system” for detecting health threats – and increased cooperation between NATO and the EU’s health emergency unit, HERA.
A new Commission-backed accelerator for medical countermeasures is set to be launched by the end of this year too, with an indeterminate amount of funding. They also want to double HERA Invest to €200 million, an investment collaboration with the European Investment Bank to develop vaccines and other therapeutics part of a funding drive.
The strategy focuses on four main health threats: vector-borne diseases – such as malaria – diseases related to armed conflict, and respiratory and contact-related diseases, like COVID-19 or mpox.
It also includes a special focus on antimicrobial resistance, also known in the health sector as the “silent pandemic” across the EU. But to date, how building stocks of cutting-edge antibiotics will relate to the Commission’s plans to boost drug production under the Critical Medicines Act is unclear.
Feed the masses
When it comes to fixing food security, the strategy does not include a list of agri-food products or pesticides and fertilisers critical to sustain agricultural output.
However, in the coordination chapter, the text refers to the need for an existing strategy – the European Food Security Crisis Preparedness and Response Mechanism (EFSCM) – to be “deepened and formalised” to “enhance information exchange, transparency, and solidarity in stockpiling” amongst the bloc's member countries and web of agencies.
First unveiled in 2021, the EFSCM is an emergency plan for food supply that focuses on fixing the weaknesses exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The EU has previously talked up agriculture as a key security concern. In the crisis preparedness plan presented last March, the Commission said households should maintain "an emergency kit," including sufficient food provisions to survive "for a minimum of 72 hours" without external assistance in the event of a crisis.
Energy secured
While the document references the importance of maintaining energy security, specific measures to enact it are covered by other initiatives like the Security of Gas Supply Regulation and a roadmap to end Russian energy imports.The stockpiling strategy does propose a Critical Raw Materials Centre to assist in the joint purchasing and stockpiling of materials listed under the Critical Raw Materials Act, such as rare earth elements and lithium.
Beyond the immediate bottlenecks that will be triggered in the event of a crisis, such materials are required to keep the production of battery cells for electric vehicles or permanent magnets in wind turbine generators humming along.
For now, the EU’s strategy hangs on strategic partnerships and cooperation through International platforms such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), apart from hoarding “certain goods, such as rare earths” until disrupted supply chains have adapted.
In a spring 2025 report, the IEA registered critical minerals were becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few suppliers, led by China. Beijing’s export limitations on raw materials have since already been causing shortages in some spots.
(jp/vib)
