Towards a “Military Schengen”: the EU Military Mobility Regulation as a catalyst for modernising the Continent’s critical transport infrastructure

Infrastructure owners, operators and developers – as well as financiers and contractors involved in the planning and delivery of transport assets – face a dual impact from the European Commission’s new Proposal for a Regulation establishing a framework of measures to facilitate the transport of military equipment, goods and personnel across the European Union (the Military Mobility Regulation or the Regulation, COM/2025/847 final): If implemented, it will drive substantial investment in infrastructure by placing EU Member States under obligations to upgrade infrastructure, while at the same time subjecting core transport infrastructure to tightened regulatory requirements.

Military mobility plays a vital role in ensuring the security of the European Union and its capacity to deter threats and respond swiftly in times of crisis. The credibility of Europe’s and NATO’s collective defence response ultimately depends not only on the availability of military forces, but on their ability to move rapidly and at scale across the Union’s territory. In practice, however, the effective movement of military personnel, equipment and goods remains constrained by insufficient transport infrastructure, limited transport capacity, and fragmented national rules.

To address these structural shortcomings and to move towards a “Military Schengen”, the Military Mobility Regulation as a binding EU-level framework seeks to enable, facilitate, and accelerate military mobility. To that end, it harmonises administrative and authorisation procedures, upgrades, protects, and expands key dual-use infrastructure serving both civilian and military purposes (such as ports, railways, streets, and bridges), and coordinates and increases transport capabilities across the Union. 

The Regulation is set to trigger substantial investment in infrastructure at both EU and Member States level. While EU and national funding instruments are expected to play a central role, the scale of the required upgrades is such that the Regulation’s effective implementation also depends on private capital. So far, 500 “Hotspot Projects” have been identified for short‑term investments to remove critical bottlenecks for military mobility along priority corridors. 

At the same time, owners, operators, and managers of strategic dual-use infrastructure, including ports, airports, energy, and communications nodes, will be subject to significantly tightened security, resilience and governance obligations in order to ensure that the infrastructure they provide is sufficiently resilient against a variety of threats. 

Overview of the specific objectives of the Military Mobility Regulation

To achieve Europe’s defence readiness, the Military Mobility Regulation pursues four specific objectives, some of which directly translate into infrastructure investment needs, while others primarily serve the resilience of such infrastructure or enabling its effective use:

1. Upgrading dual-use infrastructure readiness and resilience: The Regulation aims to enhance the readiness of dual-use transport infrastructure by obligating Member States to upgrade such infrastructure along key EU military mobility corridors and to better protect strategic dual-use infrastructure against all hazards and threats.

2. Implementation of a “Solidarity Pool”: The Military Mobility Regulation seeks to encourage the sharing and pooling of military transport and logistics capacities across the EU through a Solidarity Pool, which is open to state-owned capacities as well as those of private service providers participating through contracts with Member States. This mechanism institutionalises access to transport and logistics capacities at EU level and may, over time, see a dedicated market segment for military-mobility-related transport services emerge.

3. Streamlining cross-border military transport: The Regulation aims to reduce administrative burden and delays caused by divergent national rules on military transport. While Member States currently retain discretion over the rules on military transport, this has led to discrepancies in obtaining transport permits and generated high bureaucratic costs. To that end, the Military Mobility Regulation provides for harmonised rules and streamlined customs and administrative procedures for cross-border military movements.

4. Enhancing emergency response: The Military Mobility Regulation provides for a European Military Mobility Enhanced Response System (EMERS) to facilitate military transport and support the armed forces responding to imminent threats by priority access to infrastructure.

Upgrading dual-use infrastructure readiness and resilience

Of those four objectives, the obligation to upgrade and protect dual-use transport infrastructure along designated military mobility corridors is of particular relevance for infrastructure owners, operators, and investors, as it directly translates regulatory requirements into concrete investment needs.

The military mobility corridors 

The Regulation requires Member States to upgrade dual-use infrastructure along so-called military mobility corridors identified at EU level. These corridors consist of four multimodal routes across the Union that are considered critical for short-notice, large-scale military movements. While the precise routing of these corridors is classified, EU documents suggest a northern, a central northern, a central southern and an eastern corridor. 

Infrastructure projects along the military mobility corridors 

Along these corridors, Member States shall prioritise the following projects:

• ensuring continuity of the transport network, by closing missing links and removing important bottlenecks to military transport;

• ensuring interoperability of the transport network, including by migrating to European nominal standard railway gauge;

• adapting the infrastructure to abnormal military transport, including by reinforcing bridges for rail and road transport and by reinforcing and enlarging rail, road, port and aerodrome infrastructure;

• upgrading road tunnels to meet the highest safety classification under EU rules cleared for all dangerous goods (ADR category A), or providing for alternative routes for vehicles carrying dangerous goods incompatible with the existing tunnel category;

• increasing throughput capacity for all transport modes, including by improving rail and road access to ports and airports and improving port, airport and terminal facilities and equipment;

• enhancing the resilience of communication, control, navigation, surveillance, and energy supply infrastructure, in particular against interference with radiofrequency communications;

• ensuring sufficient resilience and redundancy in the transport network.

So far, the European Commission and the Member States have identified approx. 500 mostly classified “Hotspot Projects” for targeted short-term investments that shall be implemented as a matter of priority along the military mobility corridors to remove critical bottlenecks. These projects include reinforcing bridges, widening tunnels, and increasing capacity at ports and airports. 

Significant investment needed for implementation of Hotspot Projects

To implement these Hotspot Projects by 2035, investment of over EUR 100 billion is needed, according to estimates by the Commission. Thus, the Commission has proposed a tenfold increase in the military mobility budget line within the Connecting Europe Facility for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (2028–2034) from the current EUR 1.69 billion to EUR 17.65 billion.

Even so, a funding gap of more than EUR 80 billion remains. This shall be closed through national budgets of the Member States, reallocation of Cohesion Fund resources, use of the SAFE loan instrument, loans from the European Investment Bank, and the mobilisation of private capital as a necessary complement to public funding.

The Cohesion Fund – traditionally designed to reduce regional disparities through investments inter alia in civil infrastructure – has been opened to projects strengthening defence capabilities. Following the Commission’s mid-term review in April 2025, Member States may reallocate Cohesion Fund resources within existing programmes, explicitly including investments in infrastructure supporting military mobility. 

Similar, the SAFE loan instrument, which provides up to EUR 150 billion in low-interest, long-maturity loans to Member States requesting financial assistance for investments in defence capabilities, also supports investment in military mobility, thereby shaping the public financing framework within which private capital participation may occur.

Ultimately, however, given that a significant portion of the necessary infrastructure investment would still have to come from national budgets, the successful implementation of all Hotspot Projects remains uncertain in times of budgetary constraints.

Protecting strategic dual-use infrastructure

Besides upgrading dual-use infrastructure, the Military Mobility Regulation would also obligate Member States to identify “strategic dual-use infrastructure” within their territories, imposing security obligations on these assets. “Strategic dual-use infrastructure” is defined as key transport infrastructure that serves capital cities and major urban nodes with over one million inhabitants, including the largest ports, airports, and freight terminals of a Member State. Furthermore, strategic dual-use infrastructure also includes infrastructure that is strategically important for large-scale military transport or because it represents a known bottleneck, such as a critical bridge or tunnel.

Owners, operators, and managers of strategic dual-use infrastructure will be required to ensure that it is protected against all hazards, that its resilience is enhanced and that its effective operation at all times is guaranteed. In particular, these stakeholders shall implement the relevant basic protection measures which the Commission may adopt in implementing acts. Moreover, strategic dual-use infrastructure must adhere to the Critical Entities Resilience Directive (Directive EU 2022/2557) and NIS2 cybersecurity standards (Directive EU 2022/2555), even if not previously in scope of these directives. 

Additionally, strategic dual-use infrastructure status requires heightened scrutiny of foreign ownership and control through foreign direct investment screening. Thus, owners, operators, and managers of strategic dual-use infrastructure shall provide detailed information on the ownership structure at request of the Member States.

What to watch next

The Military Mobility Regulation is more than a set of technical rules aimed at facilitating transport across the Continent. It marks a structural shift in EU policy towards treating dual-use transport infrastructure as a strategic component of European security, supported by increased and more targeted funding. In doing so, it places the transport and logistics sector firmly within the EU’s emerging defence-readiness architecture.

While the legislative process is still ongoing, the policy trajectory is clear. Operators, owners, and investors across the infrastructure, transport and logistics sectors should therefore closely monitor the following developments:

• The EU is expected to adopt the legislative elements of the Military Mobility Regulation by the end of 2026, with the objective of establishing a fully operational and harmonised framework by the end of 2027. If adopted (as proposed), no implementing acts of Member States will be needed. 

• Calls for projects and financing opportunities under EU funding instruments, in particular the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) and its future successor programmes, aimed at supporting investments in dual-use transport infrastructure relevant to military mobility, as published through the EU Funding & Tenders Portal and related Commission channels.

• Implementation of the basic protection measures for strategic dual-use infrastructure by the Commission.

• By 2030, the Commission plans to deploy a secure and restricted digital information system for military mobility, which will be mandatory for all Member States and is intended to facilitate, automate, and harmonise the administrative and procedural aspects of military transport.