The European Defence Agency has launched its new magazine. The magazine is being circulated throughout Europe to national defence departments, armed forces, industry, research agencies – all the key institutions with responsibility for securing the welfare of our continent’s citizens – in order to become a growing focus of analysis and opinion on European defence matters.
In this first issue we help set the agenda, with a feature interview with EDA’s Chief Executive Claude-France Arnould on the challenges that lay ahead for the continent, and the steps the EDA is taking to meet them. European Commissioner Michel Barnier sheds light on the objectives and modus operandi of the Commission’s Task Force on Defence. We also hear from the Director General of the European Space Agency Jean-Jacques Dordain, OCCAR’s Director Patrick Bellouard, and Patrick Ky, Executive Director of the SESAR Joint Undertaking on how their worlds are being reshaped by the new defence and security environment. General Håkan Erik Gunnar Syrén, chairman of the European Union Military Committee, issues a call for more cooperation, for something ‘brave’. The magazine also features the views of some of the leaders of the continent’s industry and influential academics, from inside and outside Europe.
But the magazine is also concerned with more operational challenges. It covers initiatives which ensure sorely-needed capabilities – such as unmanned systems, helicopter crew training and counter-IED technologies – can be rapidly and effectively deployed.
Defence is an insurance policy. Like all such policies, there is a premium to be paid, the cost of which escalates in line with technological and commercial pressures. European Defence Matters sets out to provide better information on how strained defence budgets can be more efficiently spent, and to raise the level of debate and discussion as to how current achievements can be better exploited for the future.
Issue 1 of European Defence Matters is available here.