European Defence Single Market (Defence Readiness Omnibus): The Legal Architecture of Europe’s Strategic Autonomy

For more than seven decades, Europe’s defence market has remained fragmented along national lines, governed by divergent procurement systems, certification procedures, and export controls that reflect twentieth-century industrial sovereignties rather than twenty-first-century security realities. The Defence Readiness Omnibus seeks to overcome this legacy of fragmentation by establishing a unified legal and regulatory foundation for the European defence economy. Conceived as one of the core reforms of the Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030, it provides the structural conditions for Europe’s rearmament to occur at scale, efficiency, and speed. The initiative harmonises rules for procurement, certification, and intra-EU transfers, transforming a constellation of national markets into a single, interoperable system. Its ambition is not merely administrative but strategic: to make regulation itself an instrument of deterrence. By aligning legal frameworks with industrial and operational needs, the Omnibus turns Europe’s legal architecture into a productive infrastructure — an essential enabler of readiness, resilience, and technological sovereignty.