Executive Summary
1. From 2024 to 2025, Taiwan’s exports of complete drones to Europe increased from 2,574 to 107,433 units—approximately a 41.7-fold rise. Exports were concentrated in Poland and Czechia, with possible onward shipment to Ukraine.
2. Europe, especially Poland and Czechia, is Taiwan’s largest export market for complete drones, but Taiwan is not a dominant import source there. In 2025 Q1-Q3, Taiwan would rank 4th in Poland’s and 2nd in Czechia’s import market by value, according to Taiwan Customs and Eurostat. China remains the top import source for both countries.
3. Europe–Taiwan cooperation is less institutionalized than US–Taiwan cooperation. The EU’s Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030 prioritizes working with member states and NATO, referencing Indo-Pacific cooperation with only Japan and India—not Taiwan. In contrast, U.S.–Taiwan cooperation is supported by a range of policies covering procurement, technology cooperation and certification, and co-production, reflected in initiatives such as the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the Blue UAS program. In Europe, however, comparable institutionalized frameworks remain largely absent at both the EU and national levels.
4. Unlike the United States, the EU does not frame drone strategy around “non-red,” focusing instead on reducing reliance on “non-associated third countries” outside Europe. Lithuania is the only European country with a clearly codified non-red policy.
5. Within Europe, overall, Taiwan’s cooperation with Central and Eastern European countries is closer than its engagement with Western Europe. In Central and Eastern Europe, cooperation most often takes the form of quasi-official channels—association-level MoUs, structured matchmaking, and localization. In Western Europe, cooperation is mostly firm-to-firm collaboration.
6. In January 2026, the European Parliament urged deeper cooperation with Taiwan on a democratic non-red drone supply chain through its report “Drones and new systems of warfare: Adapting the EU to today’s security challenges”, but the tangible policy impact remains uncertain.
7. Poland is a visible partner, but an intensely contested market for Taiwanese manufacturers. In military procurement, Taiwan faces competition on two fronts: established U.S. and Turkish suppliers in the medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) UAV segment, and Polish domestic defense primes in small- and medium-UAVs. Market access may also tighten under Decision 123/MON’s fast-track origin requirement (EU/NATO manufacture), potentially limiting Taiwan-made complete drones in relevant tenders. The broader public-safety market is similarly crowded, where Taiwanese manufacturers face stiff competition not only from Polish firms but also from Chinese commercial drones.
8. Lithuania is a like-minded partner operating low-profile drone cooperation with Taiwan. Taiwanese companies are investing in Lithuania as a base for component production or stockpiling, as well as for maintenance and support for the European drone market. Lithuanian drone manufacturers have shown growing interest in partnering with Taiwanese companies to access Taiwan’s market. With limited large-scale electronics and mechanical manufacturing but a strong software industry and battlefield-tested experience, Lithuania is highly complementary to Taiwan’s hardware and manufacturing strengths.
9. Czechia’s drone industry is a small and medium-sized (SME) ecosystem with limited domestic demand and slow procurement cycles. The more feasible Czechia–Taiwan cooperation is modular co-development and an SME coordination mechanism, not mutual procurement of complete systems.
10. France–Taiwan cooperation is localization-first system integration. The clearest channel is an Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)–Parrot effort to localize key modules and validate endurance/reliability, plus project-based integration where French partners provide avionics/sensor packages while Taiwanese partners provide airframes and manufacturing; constraints remain around hard-to-substitute components and Taiwan’s software gaps.
11. German–Taiwanese companies have B2B partnerships centered on autonomy, integration, and certification. With no disclosed bilateral framework, Taiwan–Germany cooperation is driven by B2B partnerships.
12. UK firms have expressed interest in drone cooperation, but there are few publicly visible B2B partnerships and no publicly known structured UK–Taiwan drone cooperation program.
Policy Recommendations
Recommendations for Taiwan
Taiwan should establish a Europe-facing, trusted procurement interface for vetted UAV components and subsystems, supported by traceability, documentation, and supplier verification. Taiwanese firms can expand Europe-based dual-function hubs that combine inventory with technical support to shorten upgrade and repair cycles and sustain rapid iteration. Taiwan should also strengthen credibility through standardized testing, quality assurance, and performance documentation, and pursue joint validation with European partners. Finally, Taiwan should close software and iteration gaps by investing in flight-control stacks, secure communications, integration middleware, and update pipelines.
Cross-cutting recommendations for the EU and European partners
The EU should develop an EU-level “trusted UAS” certification pathway, including documentation requirements and standardized testing protocols for procurement security, data governance, and supply chain risk. The European Commission and the High Representative should, through the EU Defence Industry Readiness Roadmap 2030 and its drone-related flagships, explicitly include Taiwan as a like-minded partner for supply chain resilience and operationalize this by integrating qualified Taiwanese firms into EU and member-state vendor qualification channels for non-red subsystems and scalable manufacturing capacity; the European Parliament’s own-initiative report “Drones and new systems of warfare” (22 Jan 2026) provides a basis, and the U.S. 2026 NDAA offers a benchmark for institutionalized partner inclusion.
Recommendations for Central and Eastern European partners
CEE partners could deepen cooperation with Taiwan by co-developing joint testing and validation pipelines—such as test ranges, exercises, and evaluation teams—to produce operationally grounded feedback and validated performance data, accelerating qualification timelines and reducing adoption risk. Where origin requirements limit full-drone imports, CEE partners should institutionalize local assembly and component-supply models, including kit-based assembly, local integration, joint ventures, and certified in-country maintenance.
Recommendations for Western European partners
Where formal cooperation is politically bounded, Western European partners should prioritize enabling technologies that can scale with lower sensitivity, including sensing and data fusion, maritime target recognition, electronic-warfare resilience, secure communications modules, supply-chain assurance, and scalable manufacturing processes. Track 1.5 convening should translate shared operational requirements into pilot projects without formal bilateral defense frameworks. Western European firms can also invest in modular integration by pairing integration-ready subsystems with Taiwanese airframes and manufacturing capacity, and localize module production in Taiwan where feasible.
