How much will Brussels invest for European defence
The European Commission has announced the first €1.2 billion of investment from the European Defense Fund to support 61 next-generation projects.
Brussels will allocate 1.2 billion euros for 61 joint defense research and development projects.
In recent days, the European Commission announced investments from the European Defense Fund (EDF) to work on a variety of next-generation military technology.
The EDF, created in 2019, has a budget of 7.9 billion euros for the period 2021-2027. “The European fund will support the design and production of next-generation combat aircraft, armored vehicles and ships, as well as critical defense technologies in the fields of space, cyber, military cloud, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and countermeasures medicines,” the Commission said.
In this way, the EU intends to support the competitiveness of the defense industry of the Old Continent, the development of key technologies that the armed forces need and strengthen the security of the Union.
At the end of July, the European Commission announced the results of the EDF tenders. And the Italian Leonardo was awarded the largest number of research and development projects. In particular, the Italian defense and aerospace giant was awarded a total of 19 projects (11 for capability development and 8 for research), five of which concern the Cyber division.
The selected proposals will involve almost 700 companies representing 26 EU countries and Norway. The projects are also characterized by enhanced cooperation in the defense sector, with an average of 18 organizations from eight countries per project.
Finally, to support military-industrial cooperation in Europe, at the beginning of the month the EU ministers responsible for the internal market reached an agreement on the 500 million fund to resort to joint procurement in defense projects.
All the details.
COMBAT FINANCING FOR AIR, LAND, NAVAL AND MISSILE DEFENSE
As explained in the note from the European Commission, the sectors receiving significant funding are air combat (around €190 million), land combat (around €155 million), naval combat (around €103 million) and defense air and missiles (about 100 million euro). Space-related projects are supported with around 50 million euros.
With €38 million invested in projects supporting cyber defense research and development, the EU is funding the joint development of cyber defense capabilities.
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION AIMS TO SUPPORT SMES INVOLVED IN DEFENSE
In addition, support is granted to projects involving cross-border SMEs and start-ups under the dedicated SME category with funding for 24 projects. Overall, SMEs represent about 43% of the subjects participating in the initiatives.
"This demonstrates that the EDF program involves the entire industrial value chain of the Union," said the executive vice president of the EU Commission, Margrethe Vestager. “The nearly 700 companies that will research and develop innovative next-generation defense technologies with EU funds will create a sustainable and competitive industrial base,” Vestager added.
EDF PROGRAMS
Therefore, the funds allocated by the EU are equivalent to 1.2 billion euros, distributed among 61 approved projects.
"In this context, with 36 funded projects, Italy is positioned immediately after France, Spain and Germany, targeting the 5 nationally led projects, a result to which Leonardo has contributed significantly" underlines a note from the group led by Alessandro Profumo . "Leonardo is also part of three important consortia for the construction of fighter jets and helicopters, which together will receive almost 200 million euros" underlines Europa Today .
In addition, almost 100 million euros will be allocated to a program for the interception of hypersonic missiles (EU HYDEF) developed for 2035 by the Spanish company Sener, one of the most strategic and relevant programs of the first round of the EDF (European Defense Fund). (Here Startmag 's insight into why Mbda attacks the EU Commission). Another 75 million euros will go to the EICACS combat air project developed by the French company Dassault Aviation.
THE AGREEMENT ON JOINT PROCUREMENT
Finally, again with regard to strengthening European defence, on 1 December the EU ministers responsible for the internal market reached political agreement on the proposal for a regulation on joint procurement. Indeed, on 19 July the European Commission had presented a proposal for a regulation on the establishment of an instrument for strengthening the European defense industry through joint procurement (EDIRPA). This instrument aims to respond to the most urgent and critical needs for defense products, including those caused by Russia's aggression towards Ukraine. Now the text will have to be negotiated with the European Parliament to finalize the deal. The EU ministers, meeting at the Competitiveness Council, confirmed the commitment envisaged by Brussels to acquire a 500 million euro defense fund to strengthen the EU's military-industrial capabilities over two years.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/quanto-investira-bruxelles-per-la-difesa-europea/ on Sun, 25 Dec 2022 07:25:06 +0000.