On Tuesday 12 February, the European Commission announced that it has officially started work with Member States on the financing of joint industrial projects from the European budget in the field of defence.
In specific terms, the Commission has sent its work programme to the Member States. In this area, the programme is adopted according to a comitology procedure. This means that the States will have to give their agreement by qualified majority. According to a European source, the first committee discussion will take place on 15 February and the vote could take place on 22 February or 11 March.
The College of Commissioners could, at its first meeting following the vote, adopt the work programme and launch calls for proposals under the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP). These projects will need to be in line with the priorities defined under the permanent structured cooperation framework (PESCO), the Capability Development Plan (CDP) and NATO.
The EDIDP programme has a budget of €500 million for 2019-2020.
In addition, Commissioner Jyrki Katainen also told the press that in March, the Commission would announce the funding, from the 2018 budget, of three new collaborative research projects for an amount of €19 million; no further information was given on these projects (see EUROPE 11991). (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)