Where is the DEFEA Conference held?

The DEFEA Conference is held in Athens, GRC.

What is the primary focus of the DEFEA Conference?

The DEFEA Conference focuses on defense and security, serving as an international exhibition for showcasing advancements in defense technology and discussing strategic security challenges in Athens.

DEFEA Conference 2026

Name: DEFEA Conference 2026
Start: 2026-05-05T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-05-05T00:00:00Z
Location: Athens

May 5, 2026Athens, GreeceIn-person

Registration open

The DEFEA Conference, held in Athens, GRC, serves as a significant international exhibition focused on defense and security. It brings together industry leaders, government officials, and military representatives to showcase advancements in defense technology and discuss strategic security challenges. The conference provides a platform for fostering international cooperation and exploring new opportunities within the global defense sector.

Committees & topics

Topics
Strategic Autonomy and Emerging Threats · Defence Innovation and Technology Transfer · Industrial Base and Procurement Transformation

Why it matters

This conference is crucial for understanding the evolving landscape of global defense and security. It highlights the latest technological innovations, from advanced weaponry to cybersecurity solutions, which are critical for national defense strategies. The gathering of key stakeholders facilitates discussions on pressing geopolitical issues and the collaborative development of solutions to complex security threats. For nations like GRC, hosting such an event underscores its role in regional security dialogues and its commitment to modernizing its defense capabilities.

The interactions at DEFEA can lead to significant bilateral and multilateral defense agreements, influencing procurement decisions and strategic alliances. The exhibition aspect allows for direct engagement with manufacturers and service providers, offering insights into market trends and future defense priorities. This direct engagement is vital for countries looking to enhance their defense industrial base and ensure interoperability with international partners. The conference also provides a unique opportunity for smaller nations to engage with larger defense powers, potentially leading to technology transfers and capacity building.

How to prepare

To effectively engage with the DEFEA Conference, participants should conduct thorough research on the exhibiting companies and the attending delegations. Understanding the strategic defense priorities of key nations, particularly those with significant presence, is essential. A strong grasp of current geopolitical tensions and regional security dynamics will enable more informed discussions and networking. Reviewing lessons such as "what-is-stakeholder-mapping" and "dynamic-analysis" can help in identifying key players and understanding their motivations and potential influence.

Attendees should also consider the broader implications of defense spending and technological advancements on international relations. Preparing targeted questions for exhibitors and panelists, focusing on areas of specific interest or potential collaboration, can maximize the value of participation. Furthermore, understanding the "engagement-strategies" employed by various nations and defense contractors can provide a competitive edge in networking and partnership development. Given the international nature of the event, an awareness of "gender-dynamics-across-cultures" can also be beneficial in fostering inclusive and productive interactions.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 5 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Greece

Host nation, seeking to bolster its defense capabilities and regional security role.

Role in topic

As the host nation, GRC plays a central role in facilitating international defense cooperation and showcasing its own defense industry. The conference allows GRC to strengthen its strategic partnerships and explore advanced defense technologies to address its security concerns in the Eastern Mediterranean.

United States

Major defense exporter, interested in strategic alliances and technology dissemination.

Role in topic

The USA, as a leading global defense power, is a significant participant, looking to promote its defense technologies, forge strategic alliances, and engage in discussions on global security challenges. Its presence often signals potential for major defense contracts and technological collaborations.

France

Key European defense industry player, focused on exports and regional security.

Role in topic

FRA actively participates to showcase its advanced defense systems and strengthen its position as a major European defense exporter. It seeks to engage in bilateral defense agreements and contribute to European security initiatives.

Germany

Significant European defense manufacturer, emphasizing innovation and strategic partnerships.

Role in topic

DEU utilizes the conference to present its cutting-edge defense technologies and reinforce its strategic partnerships within Europe and beyond. It focuses on collaborative defense projects and contributing to a stable security environment.

Türkiye

Regional power with growing defense industry, seeking partnerships and market access.

Role in topic

TUR often participates to showcase its burgeoning domestic defense industry and seek opportunities for collaboration and export. Its presence is indicative of its strategic interests in regional security and defense modernization.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Strategic Autonomy and Emerging Threats

The concept of strategic autonomy — the capacity of a state or alliance to defend its interests and act independently in security matters — has moved from a French-led aspiration to a central organizing principle of European defence policy. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 exposed acute dependencies on non-European suppliers for munitions, air defence, and intelligence, while uncertainty about long-term U.S. commitment to European security under shifting administrations has accelerated calls for greater self-reliance. The European Defence Industrial Strategy (EDIS) and the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP), proposed in 2024, embody this shift by directing member states to source a growing share of procurement from within the EU and to pool demand. At the same time, the threat landscape has broadened well beyond conventional state-on-state conflict. Hybrid campaigns — including GPS jamming in the Baltic, sabotage of undersea cables, weaponized migration on the Belarus-Poland border, and persistent cyber intrusions attributed to Russian and Chinese actors — have blurred the line between peace and war. The proliferation of cheap one-way attack drones, demonstrated daily in Ukraine and in Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, has further compressed decision timelines and overwhelmed legacy air-defence economics. For frontline states such as Greece, which hosts DEFEA, strategic autonomy also carries a regional dimension: managing tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean, securing energy infrastructure, and balancing NATO obligations with EU defence integration. The debate in 2026 centres on how to translate political ambition into deployable capability without fragmenting transatlantic cohesion or duplicating NATO structures.

Key players

Defence Innovation and Technology Transfer

Defence innovation has shifted decisively from large state laboratories to a dual-use ecosystem in which commercial firms — in AI, space, semiconductors, additive manufacturing, and unmanned systems — set the pace. The war in Ukraine has functioned as a live laboratory, compressing innovation cycles from years to weeks, particularly for FPV drones, electronic warfare, and software-defined targeting. NATO's Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA), launched in 2023, and the €1 billion NATO Innovation Fund are explicit attempts to capture this commercial dynamism, while the EU's European Defence Fund (EDF) channels collaborative R&D across member states. Technology transfer remains the most contentious node in this system. Export-control regimes — the Wassenaar Arrangement, the EU dual-use regulation, and U.S. ITAR/EAR rules — were designed for a slower, more bipolar era and now strain under the volume of dual-use goods and the speed of software updates. The 2022 and 2023 U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductors to China, and parallel Dutch and Japanese measures on lithography equipment, mark a new era of "small yard, high fence" technology denial directed at strategic competitors. Conversely, transfers to partners — F-35 co-production, AUKUS Pillar II on advanced capabilities, and Korean K2/K9 deals with Poland — show how technology sharing has become a core instrument of alliance-building. The 2026 agenda must reconcile three pressures: accelerating absorption of commercial technology into militaries that still procure on decade-long cycles; protecting sensitive know-how from adversary acquisition and reverse-engineering; and structuring transfers so that recipient states gain genuine industrial uplift rather than dependency.

Key players

Industrial Base and Procurement Transformation

Three decades of post-Cold War consolidation left the Western defence industrial base optimized for low-rate, high-cost production. The depletion of 155mm artillery, air-defence interceptors, and precision munitions stockpiles in support of Ukraine since 2022 revealed that even leading producers could not surge output quickly: U.S. 155mm production has had to roughly quintuple, and the EU's pledge to deliver one million artillery rounds in 2023 slipped by nearly a year. This has prompted a structural rethink — the U.S. National Defense Industrial Strategy (2024), the European Defence Industrial Strategy (2024), and the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP) all aim to restore surge capacity, secure supply chains, and shorten contracting timelines. Procurement reform sits at the heart of this transformation. Traditional requirements-driven, cost-plus contracting struggles to incorporate software, iterate quickly, or absorb non-traditional vendors. Models such as the U.S. Department of Defense's Replicator initiative, the UK Integrated Procurement Model, and the EU's joint-procurement mechanisms under EDIP attempt to pool demand, send longer price signals to industry, and prioritize attritable mass over exquisite platforms. Meanwhile, dependencies on adversary or single-source inputs — Chinese rare earths, Taiwanese semiconductors, energetics precursors — have made supply-chain mapping a strategic priority. For host nation Greece and other mid-sized buyers, the questions are practical: how to leverage offsets and local content requirements to grow national industry, how to participate meaningfully in EU and NATO joint programmes, and how to balance affordable off-the-shelf imports against the long-term costs of industrial dependency.

Key players