Today, EU Ministers of Defence met in the European Defence Agency’s Steering Board, in Brussels. They endorsed a package of new areas of Pooling & Sharing that EDA will coordinate and facilitate. In the context of budget constraints, ministerial endorsement is critical. “We need this top-down direction to put in place a cooperative way of working, which is EDA’s trademark”, EDA’s Chief Executive, Ms. Claude-France Arnould, said today.
Pooling & Sharing will allow access to capabilities that are not affordable for a Member State alone; it will promote savings, efficiencies and rationalisation; and, consequently, more capabilities for Member States in a time of historical level of operations for their Armed Forces. With the support of five senior level experts (former Chiefs of Defence or National Armaments Directors), EDA has been able to identify, together with Member States new areas for Pooling & Sharing. EDA also addressed ways to improve cooperation.
EDA has proposed eleven areas for cooperation. Among them, Medical Field Hospitals, Air to Air Refuelling, Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR), Pilot Training, European Transport Hubs, Smart Munitions, Naval Logistics and Training. These new projects build on the success stories of Helicopter Training Programme, Maritime Surveillance Networking and European Satellite Communication Procurement Cell (ESCPC). Some projects will kick off soon – already in December 2011.
At the end of the meeting, Claude-France Arnould stated “there is a clear momentum for moving forward, an important window of opportunity to strengthen European defence capabilities. The time has come for a change of mind-set regarding cooperation on defence capabilities. The question is no longer whether we should cooperate or not. It is now whether we want certain capabilities or not.” “We will prepare the future. I am not saying that Pooling & Sharing is the cure-all of all our budgetary challenges. But I am sure it is part of the solution. And what has been decided today is an important step for future cooperation in defence capabilities”, she added.
Fact sheet on Pooling & Sharing available here.
Pooling & Sharing before & after examples available here.