Pictured (from left to right): Rudolf Maus (NSPA Director of Logistics Operations), Tim Rowntree (departing OCCAR Director); Arturo Meiriño (new OCCAR Director), Rini Goos (EDA Deputy Chief Executive)
Rini Goos, the EDA’s Deputy Chief Executive, today attended the farewell event organised in Bonn by the Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation (OCCAR) for its departing Director, Tim Rowntree.
In his speech, Mr Goos thanked Mr Rowntree for the good cooperation with the European Defence Agency and praised him as a person “who served defence cooperation in Europe with excessive commitment”. EDA’s close cooperation with OCCAR started immediately after the creation of the Agency in 2004, leading to the Administrative Arrangement (AA) signed in 2012 and then to the Interface Document concluded in 2013.
Thanks to Mr Rowntree’s efforts and his close and pragmatic cooperation with EDA at different levels, those agreements have been implemented with success and already led to concrete outcomes such as the MMF programme, MALE RPAS, the smooth interaction in other projects of common interest (such as MMCM and MUSIS), cooperation in areas where EDA and OCCAR can benefit from each other’s expertise (for instance Security of Supply or REACH) as well as the revision of the Interface Document of 2015 which led to a more detailed and descriptive guide to ensure mutual cooperation benefits for the EDA and OCCAR, Mr Goos stated. “The key success factor for this remarkable progress was Mr Rowntree’s results oriented approach which fully fits to the Agency’s way of work”, he stressed.
The EDA Chief Executive said he was fully confident that Mr Rowntree’s successor, Arturo Alfonso-Meiriño, will pursue the good cooperation with the EDA and work successfully on the challenges to come. He wished Mr Alfonso-Meiriño good luck and great success. “The EDA looks forward to working with you to achieve our common objectives”, Mr Goos concluded.
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