Legumes (fam. Fabaceae) are the second most important family of agricultural crops worldwide. Even though legumes are used for grain, forage, silage, or green manure they are unfairly underrepresented in European cropping systems. Legumes production in Europe has been faced with a drastic decline (around 50%) in the period between 1961 and 2020. However, an increase in the legume production area since 2010 was caused by the changes in CAP, where many European Union states offered supplemental subsidies within specific programs to motivate the cultivation of legumes. Nowadays, legume production areas in the European Union occupy less than 5% of agricultural land, but it is anticipated to reach 6.3 million tons in 2030, while cultivation area is expected to grow to 2.3–2.4 million ha. Due to the functional attributes that legumes offer, including nutritional and health provision, farmland biodiversity, and improved environmental stability, it is proposed to increase legume production in Europe as an important component in agro-ecological transitions. It is foreseen that the cultivation of pulse crops will increase due to the demand for more diversified protein sources and their better availability in Europe. Various environmental pressures, such as higher temperatures together with the changed and unpredictable distribution of precipitation, interfere with legume production. Water deficit is highlighted as the most significant environmental stressor that negatively impacts agricultural production. Drought is characterized as a prolonged period of dry weather in which some areas receive less rain than usual, and it is expected to affect at least one-third of agricultural land worldwide. Severe drought events have been documented in the European continent since the beginning of the twenty-first century. There is a consensus that the alteration of drought events affecting Europe, caused by climate change, is obvious. Legumes are mainly grown in rain-fed agricultural systems, and they are highly sensitive to drought and heat stress during both vegetative and reproductive stages. There is a need to develop various strategies in order to increase the drought-stress tolerance of legumes and enable crop productivity to meet food demands in water-scarce scenarios.