At a meeting of the Steering Board of the European Defence Agency (EDA) on Tuesday 28 May, the European defence ministers approved the Agency’s long-term review (LTR) for 2024.
While the EDA has until now had three main tasks, the ministers decided to add tasks dedicated to pooling demand for joint procurement and facilitating collaborative defence research, technology and innovation.
The other three tasks are to: - identify shared needs and priorities at EU level to ensure that EU Member States’ armed forces have the capabilities they really need; - harmonise requirements and engage in the joint development of capabilities while ensuring interoperability and interaction with EU civil and defence policies; - express the common positions of the Ministries of Defence.
According to the EDA press release, the update of the Agency’s mandate fully reflects the deteriorating security environment in Europe and the evolving role of the Agency in the EU defence landscape since the last approval of a long-term review of the EDA in 2017. The 2024 Review describes how the Agency can support Ministries of Defence throughout the capability development cycle.
The LTR strengthens EDA’s role in expressing the common positions of defence ministries at EU level and ensuring the coherent alignment of current and future EU defence initiatives, policies and legislation.
It also calls on the Agency to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation with NATO through an administrative arrangement and to fully exploit synergies with EU stakeholders to meet defence needs.
See the report: https://aeur.eu/f/cec
Ministers also provided early guidance to help refine and finalise the opportunities that will be highlighted in the final report of the Coordinated Annual Defence Review (CARD) 2024, which will be presented in November, and marked the 20th anniversary of the Agency’s creation. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)