EDA launches plan to strengthen Defence Technological and Industrial Base (DTIB)

European Union (EU) governments today agreed a series of specific steps and timetables for implementing a strategy to strengthen the Defence Technological and Industrial Base (DTIB) by strengthening competition and cooperation in Europe and focusing more deliberately on the needs of the future.

A meeting of the Steering Board of the European Defence Agency (EDA), held at the level of National Armaments Directors, reviewed a series of roadmaps for delivering the ground-breaking strategy agreed by defence ministers last May.

“Ministers have recognised that individual Member States can no longer sustain their separate DTIBs on a purely national basis, and that we need to specialise and become more dependent on each other at a European level,” said Eero Lavonen, who chaired the meeting on behalf of Javier Solana, Head of the Agency.

“The roadmaps agreed today provide the key milestones to implement successfully the policies and approaches set out in the strategy,” he added.

In keeping with the EDA’s mandate to try to integrate different aspects of the defence agenda, the roadmaps cover a broad range of activities, including identification of key industrial capabilities, security of supply between countries, increased competition in the defence equipment market, deepening and diversifying the supplier base, and improved armaments cooperation.

The Steering Board agreed that rapid progress was needed before the new EDA Chief Executive presents the first annual report on the progress of the strategy to ministers next spring.

A key element of the implementation is pressing ahead with the successful market initiatives already undertaken, such as the Code of Conduct for Defence Procurement. In that context, the Steering Board agreed that, despite the substantial volume of business (an estimated €10 billion) now advertised on the EDA Electronic Bulletin Board (EBB), more needed to be done to increase cross-border bids and contract awards.

“Creating a European market is a joint endeavour by industry and governments and it is understandable that the supply side should take some time to adapt to a world in which, for the first time, defence procurement is being done on a pan-European basis,” Lavonen said.

The Steering Board also approved a Code of Conduct for coordinating investment in the Defence Test and Evaluation Base (DTEB), designed to avoid duplication and encourage the sharing of these expensive facilities. The code, modelled on the framework for the defence equipment market, aims at promoting transparency and encouraging coordination of new investments in the field of defence Test & Evaluation facilities.

The basic principle of the code, which will be operational on 1 January 2008, is mutual disclosure among the subscribing Member States (sMSs) of any planned DTEB investment worth more than €1 million - to enable a coordinated investment, or reciprocal use of such facilities.

Source: European Defence Agency

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