Croatia’s Rafales Go 24/7 as Italy’s Typhoons Step Back — What Changes Over the Adriatic

In recent days, Croatia has wrapped up the NATO transition phase that saw Italian Eurofighters help cover Croatian airspace. From 1 January 2026, Zagreb is set to switch to a full 24/7 national air policing posture with its Rafale fighters, ending a temporary reliance on Italy’s Typhoons for quick reaction alert coverage.

This is a milestone in capability and sovereignty. Keeping fighters on constant alert is not just about owning modern jets, but about maintaining crews, maintenance cycles, and command-and-control readiness day and night. In practical terms, it raises the credibility of Croatia’s deterrence and streamlines NATO’s air picture over a strategically busy Adriatic corridor.

For Italy, the handover matters because air policing is a real operational burden. Even when there are no headline interceptions, QRA duty consumes aircraft hours, pilot availability, and maintenance capacity. With Croatia moving to a self-sustaining model, Rome can regain flexibility to allocate Typhoons where demand is rising: national air defence, NATO reassurance tasks, and the steady tempo of Mediterranean missions.

Croatia, however, is only one piece of a wider pattern. Italy remains a key NATO provider of “air policing as a service” for Allies that do not field fighter aircraft or do not maintain a full-time alert posture.

Slovenia is the clearest nearby example: its airspace is covered through a combined Italian–Hungarian arrangement under NATO’s framework.

Further south, Italy also helps protect the Western Balkans through shared agreements: together with Greece it has provided air policing for Albania since 2009, Montenegro since 2017, and North Macedonia since 2020. These missions are low-visibility but strategically relevant, because they effectively extend NATO’s air defence umbrella across states that would otherwise need to rely on ad-hoc solutions.

The strategic takeaway is simple: Croatia’s move to 24/7 Rafale coverage reduces one dependency on Italian fighters, but it does not reduce Italy’s role as a backbone of allied air defence in the region. If anything, it highlights how NATO’s southern flank still relies on a small number of nations to keep the “always-on” air policing machine running.