Fibre lasers and fibre-optic gyroscopes depend on an input that is easy to overlook: specialty optical fibre. Laser makers need fibre doped with rare-earth elements such as ytterbium, erbium or thulium. Gyroscope makers need polarisation-maintaining fibre, which producers now offer with reduced cladding diameters for compact coils. Both kinds are made by fabricating a glass preform and drawing it into fibre, work that in Europe a small group of companies and research institutes carries out in-house. The question became a programme matter in May 2024, when the European Commission selected TALOS-TWO. This is a European Defence Fund research project on laser-based directed-energy weapons, with an EU contribution of €25 million. Its consortium aims to pave the way towards fully European and sovereign 100-kilowatt-class laser weapons by 2030, and to contribute to a European supply chain for laser sources at 1 µm and 2 µm. Ownership has moved at the same time. NKT Photonics, a Danish supplier of photonic crystal fibre and fibre lasers, passed to a Japanese parent in 2024. Exail Technologies, whose subsidiary makes specialty fibres in Lannion, is the subject of a pending acquisition by Thales. Three questions follow: whether each fibre family has more than one European source, whether any of those sources has been accepted by defence users, and who controls them. Together they determine how European laser and navigation programmes can be supplied.