France is reportedly sending a warship to Cyprus, and the UK is considering sending a warship to Cyprus to protect the Royal Air Force (RAF) airbase, UNN reports, citing AP and The Guardian.
Details
UK Defence Secretary John Healey, The Guardian writes, is considering sending the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Duncan to Cyprus to protect the Akrotiri airbase from future drone attacks.
While no final decision has been made, multiple sources said that the deployment of the warship, currently in Portsmouth, is being discussed as a way to better protect the base in Cyprus.
HMS Duncan specializes in anti-drone operations and last month participated in test exercises off the coast of Wales, encountering a swarm of drones, before holding a family day there on Friday.
Currently, no major UK Navy warship is in or has been sent to the Middle East, despite the conflict being in its fourth day, and concerns have been raised about the ease with which Akrotiri's air defenses were breached.
Yesterday, around midnight, one drone, likely launched from Lebanese territory controlled by Hezbollah, crashed onto the runway, after which two more drones were intercepted.
As AP clarifies, a drone attacked the British RAF Akrotiri base shortly after midnight on Monday, causing only minor material damage to an aircraft hangar. Two more drones were intercepted by British military aircraft around noon on Monday after they were scrambled from the airbase, officials said.
It will take HMS Duncan several days to reach Cyprus from Portsmouth, traveling at about 30 knots.
Meanwhile, AP writes, Cypriot officials say France will send a warship to Cyprus to bolster the country's air defenses after a Rashed drone attacked a British military base on the eastern Mediterranean island. France will also send additional ground-based counter-drone and missile systems to the country, officials confirmed on Tuesday.
Germany has also responded positively to a request to send a warship, three officials said, AP notes.
The equipment will arrive in Cyprus as soon as possible, they said.
Greece has sent four F-16 fighter jets to Cyprus, and two of its modern frigates are en route.
The EU tries to stay out of it
This, Politico writes, comes amid "the EU's reluctance to be drawn into a US-Israeli war with Iran," but "it may have no choice."
"With a drone hitting a British airbase in Cyprus, Europe's geographical proximity to the conflict may overcome the initial skepticism of many of its governments about Donald Trump's decision, as he put it on Monday, 'to eliminate the serious threat that this horrific terrorist regime poses to America,'" the publication writes.
As the publication notes, "so far, the EU's response has been narrowly focused on the impact on EU citizens in the Middle East - especially given that Tehran has launched a wave of counter-strikes across the region - and the consequences of rising energy prices, disruptions to air and sea transport, and a potential influx of refugees."
As if to illustrate how Brussels sees its limited role in the crisis, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the publication writes, on Monday outlined a number of areas she is focusing on, "from energy to nuclear energy, from transport to migration and security." She said: "We must be prepared for the consequences."
Lacking leverage over the Israelis or Trump, von der Leyen convened a "security college" on Monday: a rare gathering of European commissioners where several of them provide their colleagues with updates on issues related to the ongoing crisis. After the meeting, the European Commission said it plans to respond to the Iranian conflict by supporting EU countries and protecting Europeans from its "negative consequences."
The EU is "exchanging information on what is happening and monitoring the situation," said an EU diplomat familiar with the discussions. "In normal times, we would be talking to the American administration. We would be having a grown-up conversation with the Israelis. None of that seems possible… The EU is limited to a secondary role," he said.
In practice, the European Commission's goals, as noted, boil down to helping bloc countries evacuate their citizens from the region and monitoring any disruptions to air travel and key maritime routes, such as the Strait of Hormuz, through which oil and liquefied natural gas supplies from Persian Gulf countries pass.
European governments are trying to evacuate their citizens from the region amid serious travel problems. An EU official said that there is also concern in Brussels about the impact of the Middle East conflict reigniting the refugee crisis. EU Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner held talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday regarding the situation.
Intelligence assessments indicate an increased risk of Iran carrying out terrorist attacks in Europe, a second EU diplomat said.
The EU will also monitor energy prices and supply levels. The European Commission is to convene an energy working group with EU countries, cooperating with the International Energy Agency, with its first meeting expected this week. The EU's energy chief, Dan Jørgensen, is traveling to Azerbaijan today to discuss EU energy ties, as supplies to Europe face another squeeze due to Iran, the US, and Israel bearing down on the Persian Gulf coast. The publication writes that the conflict could hinder EU efforts to diversify energy supplies from Russia and the United States after Qatar - a key alternative supplier - halted production at the world's largest LNG plant.
Gas prices in Europe surged amid Qatar LNG plant shutdown03.03.26, 12:02 • [views_21390]
At the same time, the EU has not yet publicly considered how to strengthen Cyprus's defense. Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, speaking in parliament on Monday, said that Persian Gulf countries had asked EU countries for help, "particularly in the air defense and anti-drone sector." But Nicosia, the publication writes, has not activated EU collective defense provision 42.7 - similar to NATO's Article 5, where all members come to the aid of one of their allies - as France did after the Bataclan terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015.
"If Cyprus had done so, the move could have signaled that the bloc had become a party to the war," the publication writes.
Responding to threats to Cyprus was left to Greece, and Athens sent two frigates and a pair of F-16 fighter jets to the island, which is less than 500 kilometers from Israel, the publication notes.
Cyprus, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU for six months, was scheduled to hold a meeting of the Integrated Political Crisis Response (IPCR) group on Tuesday to "consider the implications of the evolving situation," said a third EU diplomat familiar with the preparations. The IPCR has previously been convened to respond to the Covid pandemic and Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, among other crises.
"The unpleasant truth is that the EU does not have enough leverage in the region to take any meaningful steps," Politico notes.
"This is what the US and Israel have been preparing for against their arch-enemy Iran. The EU was not ready for this," said the first EU diplomat. "Now we are sitting here as spectators because we are not an active player in this war."