European Union governments today held their first comprehensive review of the future of Europe’s Defence Technological and Industrial Base and agreed to work together to make it effective and globally competitive.
The Steering Board of the European Defence Agency, meeting at the level of National Armaments Directors, heard that pressure on European defence budgets and the continuing fragmentation of both demand and supply sides of the European market meant that defence industries faced a challenging future.
They agreed in outline the sort of across national borders. Member States subscribing to the regime have now committed themselves to try to meet requests from another Member State for goods and services during an emergency, crisis or armed conflict, including from their own stocks if necessary. They also agreed rules governing the security of classified information relating to defence procurement.
These are important steps towards ensuring that governments can buy from defence suppliers across Europe, on the basis of fair competition, with full confidence.
The meeting also considered an Agency report on various national initiatives to upgrade the equipment of the individual soldier or “21st century Warrior”, with a particular focus on technology to improve communication, protection and firepower. It found that the programmes had limited commonality and that interoperability – an important factor in multinational operations -- remained a major challenge.
The Agency was asked to define to what degree these new systems should be interoperable, identify possible areas for cooperation on sub-systems which the programmes have in common, and to work on military requirements for the next generation of systems beyond 2015.
“The 21st Century Warrior programmes illustrate once again that fragmented national efforts can cause operational problems as well as economic inefficiencies,” said EDA Chief Executive Nick Witney.
“If we are to sustain the Defence Technological and Industrial Base in Europe which everyone would like to see, we are going to have to build on the excellent first step of the Code of Conduct to ensure that, more and more, we plan, develop and procure defence equipment together,” he added.