EU chooses drones over heating
Brussels waived its own China rules to fund Ukraine's drone war as tens of millions of Europeans can't afford to heat their homes.
German and French households paid an extra €700m for power in one week last month, as the EU agreed to fund Ukraine’s drone war with Chinese-made parts.
The European Commission has for the first time allowed Kyiv to buy Chinese-made drone components with EU money, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. It is the first exception to Brussels’ own rules for the €60bn defence-loan programme bankrolling the war, and it applies to a €6bn tranche earmarked for “urgent military acquisitions.”
The EU funds Chinese drone parts it swore to phase out
Around 42 million people across the EU cannot adequately heat their homes, and energy poverty has climbed from 6.9% of households in 2021 to 9.3% the year after, according to Eurostat data. The average EU electricity bill has reached roughly €1,400 a year, rising toward €1,500 in the first half of 2026, and topping €2,100 in Germany. During the heatwave of 21-27 June, German evening prices hit €566 per megawatt-hour and the week’s heat and gas costs were linked to around 1,300 excess deaths, per Euronews reporting.
Set against that, the Commission disbursed a first €3.9bn drone tranche on 30 June, part of a €90bn Ukraine Support Loan; €60bn of it is earmarked for weapons across 2026 and 2027. Commission president Ursula von der Leyen called it proof of “unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s defence, resilience and future.” The money is being borrowed on capital markets against EU “budget headroom,” after Belgian prime minister Bart De Wever blocked a plan to use frozen Russian assets, citing legal risk to the Euroclear settlement house. It is a loan, not a straight raid on heating budgets, and the June price spike owes as much to the heatwave, nuclear curtailment and the Strait of Hormuz oil disruption as to Ukraine spending. But every euro Brussels commits to the war is a euro of borrowing capacity not spent shielding the households now going without heat.
The Chinese-parts waiver cuts against the EU’s own stated drive to “de-risk” its defence industry from Beijing. It also exposes a wider absurdity: Chinese components make up 60 to 80% of critical electronics in Russian drones too, and China supplies roughly 90% of Russia’s high-priority dual-use imports. Brussels is not funding China’s war machine by buying these parts. It is funding a war in which both sides depend on the same Chinese factories, while telling the people paying for it to manage on less gas.
“We need a new deal, a new agreement supported by strong political will where all levels of governance push in the same direction,” said Baiba Miltoviča of the European Economic and Social Committee, on the energy poverty crisis. Andreas Sieber of 350.org put it more plainly after the heatwave bills landed: “Fossil fuel companies continue to profit from the crises they helped create.”
Brussels found €6bn overnight for drone parts it said it wouldn’t buy. It has yet to find the same urgency for the 42 million people it already knows cannot pay to stay warm.
