The Commission gave a boost to Europe’s defence readiness Thursday announcing the first-ever EU-funded projects supporting common procurement of critical defence products by the EU Member States.
Funding has been approved for five cross-border defence projects under the European Defence Industry Reinforcement through Common Procurement instrument (EDIRPA), with each of the selected projects receiving €60 million, representing a total of €300 million funding.
The funding was welcomed by EC vice-president Margrethe Vestager. “This will allow to provide better value for money for national defence budgets, improve the interoperability of European armed forces, strengthen our industry and make Europe better prepared to face defence threats,” she said. “Importantly, the selected projects will also increase our support to Ukraine, with additional defence equipment.”
Two projects will bolster joint air and missile defence capabilities. The ‘MISTRAL’ project supports the common procurement of ‘Mistral’ very short-range air defence systems by nine Member States (FR, BE, CY, EE, ES, HU, SI, RO, DK). Another project, ‘JAMIE’ (for ‘Joint Air Missile Defence Initiative in Europe), will result in the common procurement of IRIS-T SLM medium-range air defence systems by six Member States (DE, SI, BG, AT, EE, LV). These are systems for protection against air threats such as combat aircraft, attack helicopters and unmanned air systems.
EDIRPA will also support the procurement of the Common Armoured Vehicle System (CAVS), a modern armoured carrier for protected troop transport, by four Member States (FI, LV, SE, DE). The modern armoured vehicles offer high performance and unprecedented mobility.
In two further projects, EDIRPA will support the common procurement of different types of 155mm artillery ammunition, namely the project ‘CPoA 155mm’ involving six Member States (NL, IT, PL, LT, DK, HR) and the project ‘HE 155mm’ involving four Member States (DE, DK, NL, EE).
The five selected projects represent a combined procurement value exceeding €11 billion, illustrating the high leverage of EU funding. EDIRPA’s €300 million investment has incentivized a commitment over 36 times larger, demonstrating the programme’s effectiveness in driving substantial defence investments across the EU.
