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The ASPEN EUROPEAN STRATEGIC FORUM 2026 strengthens Europe’s defense and resilience by uniting Eastern and Western policy leaders against escalating security threats, co-led by Aspen Institute Romania and Aspen Institute Kyiv, with the support of Aspen Institute Central Europe, Aspen Institute Germany, Aspen Institute France, Aspen Institute Italia, Aspen Institute UK, Aspen Institute Spain and Aspen Strategy Group.

Europe’s security architecture stands at an inflection point. This forum convenes the people who will shape its response, senior policymakers setting the political course, defence industry leaders building the capability, strategic thinkers stress-testing the assumptions, and institutional stakeholders holding the levers of implementation. Together, they confront three defining questions: What structural decisions can no longer be deferred? Where do the capability gaps run deepest? And what industrial imperatives must be met to close them? The answers won’t just describe Europe’s defence posture, they will determine it, for the decade now unfolding.

The ASPEN EUROPEAN STRATEGIC FORUM 2026 is a collaborative platform aiming to respond to evolving security threats in Europe and contribute to a stronger, more resilient defense approach and understanding at the level of European society and communities. The project expands dialogue across the continent, from the Eastern Flank, where the conflict resides, to Western decision-makers. This engagement shapes the understanding and support of European citizens of the continent’s main priorities: defense and security in light of multiple threats and growing technological complexity of dual-use technology, hybrid threats in modern warfare. European security and defense are now recognized as non-negotiable foundations for collective global security and shared prosperity.

Co-organizers:
Aspen Institute Romania, Aspen Institute Kyiv

With the support of :
Aspen Institute Central Europe, Aspen Institute Germany, Aspen Institute France, Aspen Institute Italia, Aspen Institute UK, Aspen Institute Spain, Aspen Strategy Group

Day 1 – Monday, September 28, 2026
Maison de Cygne

12:30 – 17:30 Leadership & Public Policies Seminar
Central Question: What Does the Optimal European Defence Equation Look Like for Structure, Innovation and Society?

A short Leadership Seminar bringing together ∼25 young rising leaders, aged 25 to 45, from relevant security and defense fields for a deeper, more applied discussion, on the sidelines of the Forum. As defence, security and innovation accelerate together across Europe, where does society fit into the equation and how can Europe ensure that technological and industrial capability advance without outrunning public trust and democratic consent?

18:30 – 20:30 Aspen European Strategic Forum Dinner/Reception
(by invitation only)

The pre-forum dinner/reception serves as a strategic networking cornerstone, designed to cultivate connections, prior to the event’s core programming.

Day 2 – Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Residence Palace, Rue de la Loi 155, 1040 Brussels

8:30 – 9:00 Registration and Welcome Coffee

9:00 – 9:20 Introduction & Welcome Remarks

09:20 – 10:05 Panel Session I
FROM STRATEGY TO ARCHITECTURE:
Building a Viable European Security Strategy

When President von der Leyen announced plans for a new European Security Strategy in January 2026, she framed it as a response to major geopolitical shifts, an effort to collect accumulated knowledge and give Europe an appropriate strategic answer to a transformed security environment. The central challenge the ESS faces is not one of diagnosis but of architecture: Europe has spent four years generating an extraordinary volume of defence instruments and the ESS is now tasked with streamlining lessons learned from that implementation into a broader, more comprehensive picture of the security environment and the EU’s way forward. What Ankara has clarified is the political context in which that consolidation must occur: a United States providing “critical but more limited” support, a continent increasingly serious about its industry and critical infrastructure. The question for this panel is therefore not whether Europe needs a security strategy, it manifestly does, but whether the ESS can bridge the structural gap between Brussels’ institutional ambition and member states’ divergent threat perceptions, defence industrial capacities, and political will. Getting to a viable strategy means resolving three tensions the documents alone cannot: the tension between collective EU action and national sovereignty over defence decisions; between the urgency of rearmament and the coherence of a genuinely integrated European defence market; and between strategic autonomy as a principle and the operational reality of NATO remaining the continent’s primary defence framework. Ankara sharpened all three, and this panel asks what a credible path forward looks like.

10:05 – 10:20 High-Level Conversation – TBC
The Missing Flank: Public Support & Societal Preparedness

Across much of Europe, public enthusiasm for higher defense spending and stricter security measures is cooling even as the threat environment intensifies, creating a widening gap between strategic necessity and political sustainability. Economic pressures, fatigue with prolonged crisis mobilization, and competing domestic priorities are eroding the permissive consensus that underpinned the post-2022 surge in defense budgets. This session examines why societal support is faltering, whether governments have oversold short-term urgency at the expense of long-term buy-in, and what happens to procurement plans, alliance commitments, and industrial ramp-ups if publics disengage. The conversation will assess the political economy of sustaining security investment over a multi-year horizon, and what it will take — in messaging, burden-sharing, or policy design — to rebuild durable public consent.

10:20 – 10:30 Coffee break

10:30 – 11:15 Panel Session II
THE INVISIBLE FRONT: Cyber, AI and Defense Innovation

While drones and satellites dominate headlines, an equally consequential battle is unfolding in the algorithms making split-second targeting decisions and the networks defending critical infrastructure from constant intrusion. Artificial intelligence is transforming military decision-making, from predictive logistics and ISR analysis to human-machine teaming on the battlefield, raising urgent questions about speed, accountability, and governance. Cyber defense, meanwhile, has become inseparable from national security, as state and non-state actors probe power grids, financial systems, and defense networks with increasing sophistication. This panel gathers policymakers, technologists, and defense-industrial leaders to unpack how AI and cyber capabilities are being integrated into national defense strategies, and what frameworks are emerging, including the EU AI Act, to govern their use responsibly. Speakers will address the innovation pipeline itself: how startups, primes, and private capital are being mobilized to close capability gaps, and where procurement bottlenecks still slow the translation of cutting-edge research into fielded systems. The conversation will conclude with a forward-looking assessment of what a truly AI-and-cyber-ready defense posture requires, both technologically and institutionally, over the next decade.

11:15 – 12:00 Panel Session III
THE NEW BATTLESPACE:
Drones, Satellites and Contested Domains

The war in Ukraine and rising tensions across the Black Sea have made one thing clear: the domains of conflict have expanded from land, sea, and air into orbit and the electromagnetic spectrum. Unmanned aerial, maritime, and ground systems are reshaping how militaries surveil, strike, and defend contested territory, from drone walls along NATO’s eastern flank to autonomous maritime patrols tracking shadow fleets in the Black Sea. At the same time, satellites have become indispensable infrastructure for modern defense, providing ISR, secure communications, and precision navigation, even as they face growing threats from jamming, spoofing, and anti-satellite capabilities. This panel brings together military, industry, and space-sector leaders to examine how these physical and orbital domains are being contested, defended, and increasingly fused into a single operational picture. Panelists will explore procurement and interoperability challenges, the role of commercial space and dual-use technology, and what resilience looks like when adversaries can target infrastructure hundreds of kilometers overhead as easily as assets on the ground. The discussion will close by asking what this means for NATO’s eastern flank specifically, and how allied states and industry should be investing today to stay ahead of a rapidly evolving threat picture.

12:00 – 12:45 Panel Session IV
ECONOMIC SECURITY AND SUPPLY CHAIN RESILIENCE
Securing the Foundations of European Defence Capacity

Defense industry relies on critical minerals and rare earths to meet its ambitious plans. Europe’s push for economic security has moved from rhetoric to policy, as dependencies on critical minerals, semiconductors, and energy inputs are increasingly treated as strategic vulnerabilities rather than mere commercial risks. Instruments like the EU’s Competitiveness Compass and de-risking strategies toward China signal intent, but implementation remains uneven, and member states diverge sharply on how far to go in trading efficiency for resilience. This panel examines where Europe’s supply chains remain most exposed, whether current tools (friend-shoring, stockpiling, industrial subsidies) are adequate to the scale of the challenge, and how smaller and Eastern European economies can position themselves within reconfigured value chains rather than simply absorbing the costs of others’ de-risking. Panelists will also weigh whether economic security measures risk fragmenting the single market even as they aim to protect it from external coercion.

12:45 – 14:00 Networking Lunch

14:00 – 15:30 Panel Session V
THE NEXUS OF ECONOMIC SECURITY AND THE ECONOMICS OF SECURITY:
A Transatlantic Assessment of Key Dynamics in International Trade and Security Policies

All EU countries are reassessing the evolution of global trade in terms of tariffs and other obstacles to the flow of goods and services, in terms of growing competition from China in critical sectors and value chains, and in terms of security of supply (energy, strategic materials, microchips, etc.). The practical options and policy choices that are being considered in this context are also affected by security and defense concerns that cannot be addressed solely in the NATO context and that directly impact Transatlantic relations. From a Transatlantic perspective, with EU-U.S. trade relations entering a new phase following the recent agreement (which leaves many problematic issues unsolved, subject to negotiations that will not be easy), understanding how Washington sets its trade priorities is critical for European stakeholders. Part of this project aims to analyze how decisions are made inside the administration, how tools such as Sections 232 and 301 are applied, and where the real red lines and points of leverage lie. This meeting intends to present and discuss a research paper prepared on these strategic issues.

15:30 – 15:45 Coffee break

15:45 – 16:30 Panel Session VI
DEFENCE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AND SPENDING
Financing the European Defence Build-Up; Mechanisms, Gaps, and Conditionality

The political commitment to higher defence spending across NATO’s European pillar is now beyond serious dispute. The harder question is whether the industrial base can absorb that investment effectively, and whether the financing architecture is fit for purpose. This panel examines the SAFE instrument, EDIP, EIB defence financing, and the emerging role of capital markets in the European defence build-up. It will assess industrial capacity constraints, the risk of spending racing ahead of production, the conditionality debates around joint procurement, and the strategic opportunity for countries along the Baltic-to-Black Sea corridor to position their defence industrial ecosystems as comparative advantages.

16:30 – 17:15 Panel Session VII
PROTECTING EUROPEAN FLANKS AND SEAS
The Eastern and Southern Flanks, the Black Sea, and the Maritime Security Continuum

Europe’s strategic periphery is not a single theatre but a connected system of vulnerabilities and interests, from the High North through the Baltic and down through the Black Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean. This closing panel examines the coherence of NATO’s flank posture in light of Ankara’s outcomes: the adequacy of deterrence architecture along the eastern flank, the evolving security dynamics of the Black Sea following five years of war, the growing strategic salience of undersea infrastructure and maritime drone operations, and the linkages between the northern and southern maritime flanks that European security planners can no longer treat in isolation.

17:15 – 17:30 Conclusion remarks