For a prosperous, secure, democratic and sovereign Europe, we need to pull in the same direction, not keep getting in our own way. 

Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine is in its fifth year. It's needless to say that Europe must continue supporting the Ukrainians fighting for their freedom and sovereignty. And as Russia tests European resolve with hybrid attacks, sabotage, and state-sponsored terror on European soil, one thing is obvious: Europe as a continent needs to be able to deter threats and defend itself. That requires strength. Military, economic, and technological.

Security and prosperity are not separate challenges. A Europe that cannot innovate, compete, and build at scale cannot defend itself either.

For years, I've argued that Europe has all the building blocks to be an engine of global innovation. The capital is here, just fragmented into too many small national pools. The talent is here, but too many of them end up founding their companies in San Francisco. Policy ambition is catching up: the Draghi report, the push for a Capital Markets Union, rising defence budgets. But policy alone won't get us there.

Something is changing, though. Across Europe, a generation of founders is building with an ambition and boldness that would have been unthinkable ten years ago. European companies in deep tech, in AI, in defence are being built right to compete globally. Governments are backing them more seriously than before. Capital is following. The raw ingredients are on the table. All that said, for defence the European environment remains fragmented. Too often, sovereignty is an argument to choose local, hindering the development of global champions. We’re building neither European nor global winners. We're simply not allowing the most competitive European technology to win.

What worries me even more is that we also keep getting in our own way. Too often, European defence startups and technology companies treat each other as threats rather than allies. The same dynamic plays out in ministries, industrial summits and the media. We undercut each other. We talk each other down. We act as if another European company's success comes at our expense. It doesn't. Every European company that succeeds strengthens the ecosystem. It makes it more credible, more attractive to the talent and capital we need to attract and retain on this continent.

Look at the US. Not only do they operate with larger defence budgets, but companies like Palantir and Anduril also form joint consortia and publicly champion each other. They build together because they understand that the mission is bigger than any single company's market share. In Europe, that instinct is still rare. At NestAI, we have tried to hold ourselves to that same standard, with partnerships across industry and forces. Our philosophy to building true defence capability relies on openness, modularity and interoperability, on the premise that the same logic applies between defence systems as it does between allied forces: things get stronger when they connect, not when they are walled off. 

And nowhere is this more consequential than for companies building technology to strengthen Europe's defences. When companies that should be working together let rivalry get in the way instead, the cost compounds over time. Talent leaves. Governments lose confidence and buy non-European. And the ecosystem that needs to be growing gets thinner instead, making it harder to attract the next generation of founders, engineers, and capital. And as it compounds, the gap widens.

So here is what I think we owe each other. When a European company wins a major contract, think of it as a door opening for all of us, rather than a reason for jealousy. When a European founder is building something ambitious, ask how you can help instead of looking for reasons it will fail. Invest and partner across borders. Compete hard on the merits, but stop treating another European company's success as a threat. As earlier said, and what most of us would agree with, a prosperous, secure, democratic and sovereign Europe depends on all of us pulling in the same direction. Now we just need to start acting like it.

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