France works to revive flagging defence exports

Seeking to boost arms sales, France will computerize requests for export licenses, cut delays in handling applications and ease restrictions on products and personnel moving within the European Union.

The new measures are intended to “simplify, modernize and facilitate the current procedures,” French Defense Minister Hervé Morin said at a Dec. 13 press conference, flanked by top executives from DCNS, Dassault Aviation, Safran, Thales and the Délégation Générale pour l’Armement (DGA), the government’s arms procurement office.

Morin said a relaunch of France’s arms-export efforts has been a top priority since he arrived in office seven months ago.

Dassault Rafale: Attempted sale to Morocco was a failure

France’s failure to sell the Rafale fighter jet to Morocco earlier this year highlighted a lack of coordination not only between government departments, but also with the prime contractor, Dassault.

“This was a failure,” Morin said.

The handling of the Morocco campaign showed the administration “did not speak the language,” he said. The dossier had to be restarted when he took up the defense portfolio, and the new administration needed time to review Rabat’s request for fighter jets. The response was not as rapid as it should have been, he said.

France’s share of a lucrative and dynamic world arms market is slipping, with Israel coming up behind strongly, he said.

The main aims of the improvement program are:

• Improve the timeliness of the handling of requests for export licenses.
• Facilitate industry’s processes.
• Update the list of classified equipment needing export approval.
• Strengthen contact with industry, particularly small- and medium-sized companies.
• Ease relations with European and allied partners.

Paris also is considering adopting the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Sales (FMS) procedure to allow government-to-government contracts in addition to normal commercial deals, Morin said.

Thales Chief Executive Denis Ranque welcomed the initiative, which he said would simplify the life of multinational companies with interests in other European countries. Companies with subsidiaries in Europe cannot freely move personnel and designs.

Dassault Chief Executive Charles Edelstenne said the proposals represent a “rebalancing between control and support of exports.”

Edelstenne said he is happy the government decided to help arms exports, which help even up France’s negative trade balance.

On the importance of state support, Bernard Planchais, the chief operating officer of DCNS, said the French Navy had been essential in the training and certification of the Malaysian Navy on the Scorpene conventional submarine.

Morin also said there would be a concerted effort to export secondhand French weapons, and a number of potential clients had been identified.

A separate national strategic plan to support defense exports will be unveiled in January in close collaboration with the office of the president, the prime minister, and the foreign and finance ministries, Morin said. Among its measures:

• Handle all applications for export licenses on SIEX, a new computerized interministerial system for approvals, by the end of June. A third of requests are already handled online.
• Take all industry export requests via the online ENODIOS system.
• Cut the number of applications tabled for a decision. A yes or no decision will be given as soon as possible. The number of decisions held over by the CIEEMG interministerial approvals committee fell to 11 percent in November from 26 percent in May. The current average time for processing an application is 80 days, a handicap for French exporters competing with peers in overseas markets.
• Use the accelerated process more, by dealing with urgent cases instead of waiting for the monthly meeting of the CIEEMG.
• Increase the use of global approvals that allow exports from a list of equipment to European and allied nations, instead of requiring permission for each shipment.
• Replace France’s list of export-controlled equipment with the European Union’s list.

Last year’s parliamentary report by conservative lawmaker Yves Fromion drew heavily on industry comments to criticize an unwieldy export control system that handicapped French companies against their competitors in foreign tenders.

One of the major handicaps identified by Fromion was multiple French companies fielding competitive offers in export markets, confusing the customer, reducing profit margins and often allowing a foreign competitor to win the contract.

Source: P. Tran - DefenseNews

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