Exclusive | Poland Is Taiwan's Gateway to the EU Drone Market

A Taiwanese business delegation inaugurated the Taiwan-Europe UAV Alliance with regional officials in the Polish city of Gdańsk on September 8, formalizing a partnership that both sides hope will embed Taiwan's drone industry into Europe's rapidly expanding defense supply chain.

Led by the Taiwan-Poland Chamber of Commerce (TAIPO), the delegation attended the Pomerania Region Taiwan-Europe Drone Industry Matchmaking Event before witnessing the Taiwan-Europe UAV Alliance's official launch. The delegation completed a full circuit, from government-level talks to industry matchmaking, within 24 hours of arriving in Gdańsk.

Pomerania Deputy Governor Marcin K. Skwierawski, speaking in an exclusive interview with Storm Media on September 7, made Poland's pitch directly: "Poland is the gateway for Taiwan to enter the EU market," he said, adding that the bloc represents a consumer base of 500 million people. While Pomerania has expressed interest in Taiwan's broader high-tech and semiconductor industries, Skwierawski said drone cooperation is the most immediate priority. "The main way forward is for governments and industries to work together, form delegations, and expand connections at all levels," he said.

Poland's defense appetite, and its growing preference for regionally sourced equipment, has created an opening that Taiwanese companies are eager to fill. According to NATO data, Poland is expected to spend around €53 billion ($61.45 billion) on core defense this year, equal to approximately 4.7% of GDP and the fourth-highest total in the EU, behind France, Italy and Germany.

That spending is increasingly directed toward domestic and regional producers. Data from Poland's Armaments Agency, analyzed by Reuters, shows that Polish defense procurement from domestic companies, including joint ventures with other Central European firms, rose nearly fourfold since 2022, reaching 30.4 billion złoty ($8.15 billion) last year. "We're building the largest land army in Europe," Deputy State Assets Minister Konrad Golota told Reuters.

Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz has framed the shift in explicitly strategic terms. "This is not merely an investment to ensure we have a highly developed defence industry," he told Reuters. "It is a matter of supply chain independence: ensuring independent supplies to the front line should the need arise." Drones, ammunition and other high-frequency-use equipment are now priority targets for local and Central-Eastern European production.

Taiwan's export numbers tell a story of explosive growth. A report published September 2 by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) found that Taiwan's drone shipments climbed from 3,472 units in 2024 to 122,726 in 2025, based on Ministry of Finance statistics. In the first half of 2026 alone, exports reached 191,373 units, with Poland, the Czech Republic and the United States identified as the leading markets.

But DSET policy analyst Cathy Fang flagged a structural risk beneath those headline figures. "Part of European demand remains closely tied to Ukraine's wartime market," she wrote in the report, cautioning that whether strong export volumes will translate into sustained post-conflict procurement remains uncertain. "Export growth has yet to translate into stable, long-term government procurement demand," the report concluded.

The supply chain also carries vulnerabilities that could limit Taiwan's ability to scale. DSET found that Taiwan still relies on overseas sources for a cluster of critical technologies: flight controller chips, communication modules, satellite positioning and imaging chips, and key software components. At the materials level, battery cells and rare-earth magnets are still sourced predominantly from China, despite a government drive to establish supply chains free of Chinese components.

Skwierawski pointed to three structural advantages that make Pomerania an attractive European base for Taiwanese companies. The Port of Gdańsk ranks among the busiest in the Baltic and serves as a key logistics node for Central and Eastern Europe, offering Taiwanese firms that establish a local presence direct access to the EU single market. The province is also home to more than 80 universities and 150,000 enrolled students. "Abundant human resources combined with an excellent geographic location: that is our greatest competitive advantage," he said.

Skwierawski also underscored Poland's standalone market significance, beyond its role as a regional gateway. "Poland is a market of 40 million people," he said. "That matters to Taiwanese companies."

The delegation that traveled to Gdańsk also included representatives from Chiayi County, one of Taiwan's major agricultural regions. Skwierawski noted that high-quality agriculture is a shared feature of both Taiwan and Pomerania, identifying it as another avenue for bilateral cooperation alongside the defense-industrial focus.

The launch of the Taiwan-Europe UAV Alliance carries significance beyond the ceremony. As the DSET report made clear, Taiwan's drone sector currently occupies a supplier role in the global supply chain, exporting units at scale but not yet functioning as a strategic industrial partner with guaranteed procurement pipelines.

Poland's ambitions open a different kind of door. Warsaw is not simply seeking to import finished products; it is building a defense industrial base that emphasizes co-production and co-development with regional partners. The Taiwan-Europe UAV Alliance is designed to align with that model, shifting the bilateral relationship from transactional trade toward embedded industrial partnership. For Taiwan's drone sector, which faces the prospect of wartime-driven Ukrainian demand eventually moderating, completing that transition is not merely a commercial opportunity. It is a structural imperative.