Vertical Markets

Euro co-operation call

by Mark Rowe

More European co-operation on security and defence has been called for by José Manuel Durão Barroso, President of the European Commission. Speaking at a conference on the European security and defence sector in Brussels on March 4, he described the security and defence sector as ‘a major industrial sector, which directly employs 400.000 people and indirectly generates another 960.000 jobs in Europe, with a turnover of 96 billion euros in 2012 alone, and 23 billion euros of exports in 2011’.

He spoke of the a competitive and efficient security and defence sector as a priority and the need for defence and security for the political credibility of the European Union. He said: “Recent events from Afghanistan to Africa and even more recently Ukraine have shown that for the sake of its own stability and security, Europe has to pay attention to old “frozen conflicts” and other potential new flashpoints. There is also beyond Europe a growing demand for Europeans to dispatch their military forces on mission abroad.”

Given shrinking defence budgets, he said states need to get better value from defence budgets. “There is room for an improved coordination of equipments and requirements and more efficient collaborative programmes.”

He proposed to tackle market fragmentation ‘by tackling market distortions and improving security of supply on the basis of the two EU directives of 2009: one on intra-EU transfers and the other on public procurement’.

“Second, we also propose to strengthen the competitiveness of Europe’s Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB) by promoting standardisation and common certification; by improving access to raw material; and by properly ensuring SMEs’ role in the supply chain, notably through the development of industrial clusters with SMEs.

“Third, we propose to fully exploit potential synergies between civil and defence sectors by developing more dual-use products and capabilities. We are notably looking at ensuring as many synergies as possible between our civil research programme, Horizon 2020, and those co-ordinated by the European Defence Agency.”

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