At the occasion of the Farnborough International Air Show 2010, the European Defence Agency (EDA) and SAAB, representing a large part of the EU’s military aerospace industry, signed a contract launching strategic work to help safeguard Europe’s ability to independently provide competitive aerospace solutions to meet CSDP capability requirements in the 2035 timeframe.
The contract, valued at € 400 k, aims to provide an achievable step by step plan to develop a more robust, sustainable and competitive European military aerospace industry, one better able to provide the military capabilities Member States require. It includes work to:
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capture a commonly shared view of the state of the industry and the challenges ahead,
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identify the strengths and weaknesses,
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provide a roadmap and implementation plan identifying priority measures to be taken to strengthen the industry,
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identify pilot programmes in the UAS and helicopter areas.
It is an important step in fulfilling the Agency’s task, given by Defence Ministers, of identifying those key industrial capabilities to preserve or to develop in Europe and on which work has commenced with a focus on the military aerospace industry.
EDA’s Chief Executive, Alexander Weis, highlighted that Europe’s military aerospace industry, which represents over 55% of Europe’s Defence Technological and Industrial Base (DTIB), employing directly over 200,000 people, is critical to meeting Member States' future military requirements, but is unlikely to be sustained in the long term without transformational action and new ways of business.
Recalling that the Lisbon Treaty set out the Agency’s important role in “identifying and implementing any useful measure for strengthening the industrial and technological base and improving the effectiveness of military expenditure”, Weis noted that the contract would “help create a European approach to the aerospace DTIB - one that recognised that it is more than a disparate range of national capacities - and that European collaboration must be an important part of the sectors future”.
EDA is engaged in a dialogue with stakeholders on collaborative policies, plans and programmes which could assist European decision makers in safeguarding European industry’s ability to competitively respond to future military capabilities requirements.