Brussels, 08/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - Following the “clarion call” made on 9 February at the European Defence Agency (EDA) meeting in Brussels by the big fish and small fry of the armaments world at an important research conference, work continued at a technical level towards the launch of an initial research programme and for finding a suitable funding formula. The idea of creating a fund, suggested at the beginning of the year by the EU High Representative, Javier Solana (who is also the Head of the EDA), clashed with the reticent positions of several Member States, as expressed at the informal meeting at Innsbruck and which led to the Agency adopting a pragmatic approach that will enable Member States to take part in thematic research projects on a voluntary basis. During the Defence Council on 15 May, Ministers will be called on to approve rules on funding and management that the EDA is seeking to implement.
Bertrand de Cordoue pointed out that this will mean the EDA, “launches research work, finds a innovative financing formula and guarantees that research subjects are clearly linked to common capacity objectives”. In an effort to reach this goal, the EDA research director explained that it had decided on a pilot subject: protection of forces, which could simply de divided into sub-themes such as armour, preparation and information management. Initially, this subject clashed with the lack of enthusiasm expressed by the Unite Kingdom and Germany. For the former, the subject had been “overused” and had been sufficiently dealt with at a national level. The British, therefore, did not see the point in cooperating on this subject at a European level. The Germans would have liked to have seen a subject that they find extremely important, placed at a European level, that of: agile unmanned aerial vehicles in an Operation Network Environment (ONE), namely, unmanned surveillance/reconnaissance planes that can fly at relatively low altitudes. The British and Germans, however, as pointed out by Bertrand de Cordoue, both supported the project on forces protection and “actively participating” in it. The Agency has set about dividing this subject into R/T projects according to a specific structuring approach: sub-capacities; “enablers”; technical solutions; research aims. This work is being continued. The research director explained that the work is currently at the stage where “enablers” are melding into technical solutions. The director believes that this work should conclude with an R/T programme in June, together with a given timetable.
On 15 May the Agency will put forward a research funding formula to its Board of Directors, based on Article 20 for joint management, which set up the EDA and which also allows for the setting up of programmes (category A) in which participating Member States can leave according to the opt-out principle. Ministers will therefore be called on to say whether they agree with this research cooperation framework based on an ad-hoc budget, namely, a thematic programme accompanied by a management committee represented by participating Member States exercising voting rights in proportion to their participation in the programme. There would definitely have been a sizeable number in Europe's capitals of those who would have preferred a system of voting based on unanimity, with a vote for each country, but the Agency will be proposing a system that corresponds with, “rules in force at the European Central Bank's Board of Governors”- two-thirds qualified majority voting obtained through a vote-weighted system based on the level of participation of each country in the programme. This participation will be structured by 5% minimum and 33% maximum thresholds for guaranteeing a European dimension in each programme. Derogation at a minimum threshold is included for smaller Member States that benefit from the same mechanism that already governs the Agency's budget. In this context, it will be necessary to tackle the sensitive issue of “fair returns”. Bertrand de Cordoue explained that on this point, the Agency will be proposing that “each country does not receive its contribution” back for the investment it made per project or programme. If Member States agree to these rules, they could, by the summer, decide on whether to take part in the protection of forces programme, after being informed of the programme contents in June.
Other subjects are on the 15 May agenda. The Agency will be presenting Ministers with a new package of harmonised statistics for defence research in Europe. These statistics demonstrate that research spending in cooperation are slightly higher - 8% instead of 5%, which is the figure recently put forward - but this figure remains a long way off the objective of 20%¨. In the capacity domain, the Agency will be presenting a balance sheet of the work carried out on strategic transport and flight refuelling. Validation of the Code of Conduct on the defence public procurement markets and a point on industrial and technological defence support complete this programme.