The 2026 edition brings together nearly 80 listeners representing 26 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom, as well as four major European institutions: the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Commission through its Department for Economic and Monetary Affairs, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Investment Bank (EIB). DG DEFIS (Direction Générale de l'Industrie de Défense et de l'Espace), the Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation (OCCAr) and the European Defence Agency (EDA).
Organised over four weeks in several European countries, the session aims to :
- deepen understanding of current European defence issues ;
- encourage the sharing of experience between civilian and military managers ;
- develop a shared vision of the continent's industrial and capability challenges.
Theme of this 37e edition :
- " Innovate, finance, scale up: building urgently Europe's defence of tomorrow "
Innovate, finance, develop: building tomorrow's European defence as a matter of urgency
Against a backdrop marked by the return of high-intensity warfare to Europe, technological acceleration and the rise of hybrid threats, the session will examine Europe's ability to innovate faster, finance its capability priorities and change industrial scale.
WEEK 1: OPENING IN FRANCE AND TRIP TO BRUSSELS
The first week of the SERA37 opened with a speech by Engineer General Alexandre Lahousse, Deputy Director General of the French Defence Procurement Agency (DGA), who presented the major capability and industrial challenges facing European defence.
The programme also included a number of conferences and discussions between listeners on the challenges of innovation, financing and industrial cooperation in Europe.
The last two days of this inaugural week took place in Brussels, where the auditors were welcomed by the European Defence Agency (EDA) for a presentation of its missions and its role in European capability cooperation.
The week ended with a high-level panel featuring :
- Baudouin Heuninckx, Director for Industry and Facilitators at the EDA
- Camille Grand, Secretary General of the Association of European Defence, Security and Aerospace Industries (ASD)
- Tomasz Husak, Director of Defence Policy at DG DEFIS
The auditors were also able to visit the European Council, at the heart of the Union's decision-making process on security and defence.
NEXT APPOINTMENT
SERA37 will continue over the coming months with two new weeks organised by the session's partner countries.
- Spain: from 20 to 24 April 2026
- United Kingdom: from 18 to 22 May 2026
- France: closing week from 22 to 26 June 2026.
These different stages will enable listeners to continue their collective reflection on the construction of tomorrow's European defence.
