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General Henri Bentégeat, Chairman of the EU Military Committee, Allan Cook, President of the AeroSpace & Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD), Javier Solana, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union and Head of the EDA, and Alexander Weis, Chief Executive of EDA

Every year the European Defence Agency organises a Conference, which focuses on an important theme for EDA’s activities in that year. The 2009 EDA Conference was dedicated to “Helicopters – Key to Mobility”.

Increasing the availability of helicopters has been identified as one of the priority actions for the European Defence Agency. The 2009 Annual Conference was organised to enhance the support for EDA’s work on helicopters, to generate concrete activities and indicate possible solutions.

The Conference highlighted key contextual issues surrounding the need for helicopters and outlined the challenges that need to be collectively overcome, in the short, medium and longer-term. Potential solutions, including collaborative opportunities to enhance helicopter availability, were proposed and industrial contributions to meet the challenges were presented.

Javier Solana and Alexander Weis

Some 240 participants from 25 participating Member States, European industries and other international organisations were welcomed by ALEXANDER WEIS, EDA’s Chief Executive. The Conference was opened by three keynote speakers, JAVIER SOLANA, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union and Head of the EDA, GENERAL HENRI BENTÉGEAT, Chairman of the EU Military Committee and ALLAN COOK, President of the AeroSpace & Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD).

The first panel, “Setting the scene”, focused on describing reality and lessons learned from recent military as well as civilian/disaster relief operations. The second panel, “Potential Solutions”, provided Industry the opportunity to offer their view on solving the problems which can be used in EDA’s ongoing work on helicopters.