The European Commission announced, on Wednesday 30 June, the adoption of the first annual work programme of the European Defence Fund (EDF).
This adoption paves the way for the launch of 23 calls for proposals for a total of €1.2 billion in EU funding for collaborative defence research and development projects. To finance these calls for proposals, the 2021 EDF budget of €930 million has been complemented with a ‘top-up’ of €290 million from the 2022 EDF budget.
According to the Commission, the fund should allocate around €700 million to the preparation of large-scale and complex defence platforms and systems, such as the new generation of aircraft fighters or ground vehicles fleet, digital and modular ships, and ballistic missile defence.
Around €100 million will be dedicated to critical technologies, such as artificial intelligence and cloud for military operations, semiconductors in the field of infrared and radiofrequency components.
Several hundred million euros will be used to increase synergies with other EU civilian policies and programmes, notably in the field of space (around €50 million), medical response (around €70 million) and digital and cyberspace (around €100 million).
Lastly, €120 million should be allocated to disruptive technologies and specific open calls for SMEs.
EDIDP. The Commission also announced that under the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP), 26 new projects with a budget of more than €158 million were selected for funding. Fifteen of them have Permanent Structured Cooperation status.
Projects include precision strike, artificial intelligence, cyberspace, maritime, air and land combat, undersea space, space as well as chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear elements.
The Commission explained that it had received 63 proposals in the calls involving over 700 entities. A total of 420 entities from 25 Member States (all except Luxembourg and Malta) are participating in the selected projects. An average of 16 entities from seven Member States participate in each project. There is a strong involvement of SMEs which make up 35% of the entities and receive 30% of the total funding. Finally, ten entities controlled by third countries are involved in selected proposals following valid security-based guarantees, the Commission points out.
In addition to these 26 projects, two major capability development projects received direct funding under the EDIDP: the MALE RPAS project also known as Eurodrone (€100 million) and the European Secure Software-defined Radio, ESSOR (€37 million) (see EUROPE 12217/6).
See details for the EDF projects: https://bit.ly/3xcewsO
See the list of projects selected for the EDIDP: https://bit.ly/3qB6RC0 (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)