On the eve of the meeting of European Defence Ministers (see EUROPE 12505/13), the European Commission announced on 15 June that it had selected 16 pan-European defence industrial projects and three breakthrough technology projects to receive €205 million in funding.
These funds come from the European Union Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR) for technology projects and from the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP) for industrial projects, the precursors of the European Defence Fund.
The 16 selected industrial projects involve 223 entities from 24 Member States. They will support the development of European defence capabilities such as drones and related technologies, space technologies, unmanned ground vehicles, high precision missile systems, future naval platforms, air electronic attack capability, tactical and highly secured networks, cyber situational awareness platforms, or next generation of active stealth technologies, according to the Commission's communiqué.
Of the 223 entities involved in these projects, 83 are SMEs (37%) and four participants are controlled by entities from Canada, Japan and the United States. According to the Commission, the proposals selected under the EDIDP involve on average 14 entities from seven Member States and nine proposals are permanent structured cooperation projects (PESCO).
A total of 40 proposals involving 441 entities had responded to EDIDP calls. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)