The European Commission has given preliminary approval for nearly €32 million toward Estonia's eastern border drone surveillance system, a project already partly built.
The funding is the latest installment in a program announced in March, with the first fixed systems installed on the south-eastern border in May and the full system due by the end of 2029.
The Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) will continue building the multi-layered integrated drone detection and air surveillance system on the EU's external border in cooperation with the Estonian Defense Forces (EDF).
"In cooperation with the Defense Forces, we can buy and install radars and cameras, equipment needed for drone detection, and the IT system supporting them, for a shared situational picture," said Interior Minister Igor Taro (Eesti 200).
"This will improve our ability to detect and assess potential threats so we can respond quickly. Our aim is to prevent threats before they reach the point of affecting the security of Estonian people," the minister went on.
Taro said Estonia's eastern border is currently the free world's first line of defense. "The European Union's support for strengthening drone surveillance here says that we have done good work so far, have been on the right path, and shows trust in our skills and capability to protect the EU's external border."
Veiko Kommusaar, deputy director general of the PPA for border management, said the Commission's decision was a clear sign of trust in Estonia and confirmed that the EU sees strengthening the external border as a shared security question.
"With this support, we can, over the next three years together with the Defense Forces, take air and land surveillance on the eastern border to the next level, create a more complete situational picture and improve our ability to detect and assess potential threats on land, on the Narva River and in the airspace," Kommusaar said.
He added that the investment's greatest value is not its individual radars or drones, but the ability to see what is happening on the eastern border as a whole, and to be able to respond to potential threats faster and more precisely than ever before.
The funding comes through the EU's border management and visa policy fund, with 10 percent national co-financing.
The system was announced by Prime Minister Kristen Michal in March, with over €200 million earmarked for drone defense and around €214 million for drone surveillance and countermeasures over four years. The first fixed counter-drone systems were installed on three sections of the south-eastern land border in May, and the PPA says full coverage of the Russian border should follow. The first phase — the external border and Estonia's four largest cities — is due by the end of 2027, with the full system complete by the end of 2029.
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