EDA Deputy Chief Executive Rini Goos travelled to Czech Republic this week for a series of meetings with Central and Eastern European defence industry representatives on the margins of the IDET defence show in Brno. There he also chaired a workshop on the balanced European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB).
On the opening day of the IDET show, Rini Goos delivered a speech at the “Security Trends” conference, highlighting the EDA’s role of strengthening the European defence industry. “At EDA, we fully recognize the diversity of the defence industry in Europe”, he stressed during his speech. “Diversity is an asset we need to exploit and this is why we are keen to insist on the notion of a balanced EDTIB”.
During his visit to Czech Republic, Rini Goos also had a series of bilateral meetings with defence industry representatives of Central and Eastern European (CEE) Member States such as Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
On 20 May, the EDA Deputy Chief Executive chaired an EDA-organised workshop dedicated to the Balanced EDTIB. “Europe can no longer afford to ignore the contribution of Central and Eastern European Member States’ defence industries to the European defence industry as a whole”, Rini Goos insisted during the event. “The EDA has just launched a six-month study whose goal is precisely to study the capabilities of the CEE countries and to identify ways to increase capacity building between them”, he added. Two similar workshops were previously held in Brussels in October 2014 and March 2015.
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