Elżbieta Bieńkowska, the European Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, today delivered an interesting 'outlook speech' at the European Defence Agency's (EDA) Annual Conference 2016 in which she described the main pillars of the Commission's upcoming European Defence Action Plan (EDAP).
"There is a clear political momentum to move towards more defence integration and we have to seize it", the Commissioner said.
The objective of the Commission's EDAP which will be presented on 30 November is to provide support to the whole supply chain of European defence. Mrs Bieńkowska briefly outlined the main pillars of the EDAP: supporting defence research with the launch of the Preparatory Action on defence research in 2017; unlocking EU tools to invest into the whole European defence supply chain (especially SME's); working towards a possible European Defence Fund; improving the functioning of the Single Market for defence.
The actions taken by us do not undermine Member States' national sovereignty nor the cooperation with NATO, the Commissioner stressed.
Mrs Bieńkowska welcomed the good cooperation between the Commission and the EDA.
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