At the Energy Security Congress, we took part in a debate about Europe’s maritime defence gap. The discussion emphasised that it not strategic but industrial — and closing it requires shipbuilding capacity, not strategy documents.
Speaking at the second edition of the Energy Security Congress on maritime infrastructure protection in Poland, Krzysztof Bulski, Director of the Strategy for Europe Programme and Board Member of the European Policy Innovation Council (EPIC), sat down with Marcin Ryngwelski, CEO of PGZ Stocznia Wojenna — Poland’s naval shipyard. The conversation examined Poland’s defense-industrial sector as a working example of the defense-energy convergence that European strategy documents call for but European institutions have not delivered.
The context has shifted. 100% of Poland’s crude oil now arrives by sea through the Naftoport terminal in Gdańsk. Maritime shipping routes, offshore wind installations, and subsea interconnectors form the physical backbone of the country’s energy security. Protecting them is no longer a secondary mission for the Polish Navy. It is the primary one.
Ryngwelski described a response that has been institutional, industrial, and legislative. New legislation grants the Navy direct authority over maritime threats. Four major shipyards are booked for years — building frigates under the Miecznik programme, delivering corvettes under Kormoran, and producing dual-use vessels designed for both defense and energy infrastructure protection. A generational workforce gap, left by 30 years without warship orders, is being closed through partnerships with technical schools and the Naval Academy.
That model exists nowhere else in Europe.
The European Union endorses dual-use capability, funds offshore wind expansion, and publishes maritime security strategies. What it has not done is connect these threads into a single operational framework. Energy infrastructure grows at sea. Defense procurement remains national. Industrial policy is fragmented across 27 capitals.
This is not about replicating Poland’s programme. It is about building the European architecture that would make such programmes scalable.
The discussion at the Energy Security Congress underscored a gap Brussels has yet to address: defense-energy convergence cannot remain a national experiment.
Until the EU treats maritime defense-industrial integration as a shared priority — not a bilateral initiative — Europe’s offshore energy infrastructure will remain protected by strategy documents, not by ships.
