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by Dr. Olena Kryzhanivska and Dr. Bruno Oliveira Martins
September 2026
Table of Contents
Executive Summary
This report presents an assessment of opportunities and challenges for increased EU-Canada cooperation in the field of drones and counter-drone systems. It provides a snapshot of today’s key challenges confronting both parties in a changing international security environment, marked by growing instability and unpredictability, the erosion of the rules-based world order, uncertainty in international alliances, and rapid technological change. In this context, the Russia-Ukraine war represents a major contributing factor to those dynamics, while at same time being decisively influenced by them.
Against this background, EU-Canada cooperation on security and defence presents increased opportunities. In the report, the authors argue that to strengthen EU-Canada defence industrial collaboration in unmanned and counter-unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), policy-makers should adopt practical and actionable measures in the short and medium term. These include strengthening EU-Canada industry engagement through regular cooperation mechanisms, improving accessibility of cooperation opportunities, expanding access to defence and dual-use funding programs, focusing collaboration on priority capability areas with complementary strengths, and building resilient supply chains for both unmanned systems and countering them. In concrete, the report advances the proposal of new initiatives such a joint EU-Canada Defence Industry Navigation Hub, a joint Maritime and Arctic Domain Awareness Pilot and a dedicated counter-UAS cooperation track, which could move the cooperation to a new level.
These opportunities are constrained by concrete challenges. These include Canada’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) commitments, difficulties in navigating regulations, different senses of urgency, and Canada’s lack of access to EU funding schemes in defence, which still prioritize intra-EU investments. The recent opening up of the SAFE program to Canada, though, is a positive step towards mitigating this challenge and a demonstration that some of these barriers can be overcome.
As demonstrated by this report, the possibilities for increased EU-Canada cooperation in drone and counter-drone technology, as well as military technology more broadly, are real and are a natural consequence of the changing international security situation described above. As military technologies develop at a rapid pace, fueled by developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and increasing military budgets, Canada and the EU should emerge as leaders in both development of drones and counter-UAS technology and the regulation of their use, as part of a broader promotion of multilateralism and a rules-based world order.
About the Author
Olena Kryzhanivska is a COVE Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, where she focuses on defence innovations in Canada. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Gazi University (Türkiye). Olena has provided expert analysis to the Norwegian Embassy in Türkiye, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, and the NATO Association of Canada. As an independent researcher for more than two years, she authors the weekly newsletter Ukraine’s Arms Monitor, which covers weapons transfers, defence production, and drone warfare in the context of the Russia–Ukraine war.
Bruno Oliveira Martins, PhD, is a Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), where he co-leads the Security & Technology Research Group. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Security Dialogue. His research focuses on the intersection of technological developments, security practices, and societal change, with particular expertise in artificial intelligence, drones, and security and defence technologies. He is a member of the United Nations Global Network of Experts on the Protection of Vulnerable Targets against Terrorist Attacks and has conducted commissioned research for the European Commission and European Parliament. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Minho.
Canadian Global Affairs Institute
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