Research and Innovation in Defense Capabilities

Conference on Research and Innovation in Defense Capabilities, held on Tuesday, March 26, at Parliament Palace in Bucharest, under Romania's EU Council Presidency, gathered senior officials from EU Defense Ministries, European Institutions, defense Research Centers and defense industry.

Romanian Minister of Defense, Gabriel Leș, and Chief Executive of the European Defense Agency, Jorge Domecq, were also present. Talks focused on recent developments in the European Defense Fund (EDF), but also on opportunities and challenges in the field of defense capabilities research and innovation, highlighting both new tools to prioritize defense research, technology and innovation, and to harmonize research priorities at national and European level.

Romanian Defense Minister, Gabriel Leș: European Defense Fund (EDF) is one of the most important initiatives of the European defense package - which also includes Coordinated Annual Defense Review (CARD) and Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) - aiming to tackle current and future security needs of Europe, as an element of EU Global Strategy and its implementation plan on security and defense (IPSD).

In turn, Chief Executive of European Defense Agency, Jorge Domecq, underscored the importance of research in the defense area. He mentioned that in over 15 years of activity, EDA developed 180 projects worth over 1 billion euro. As EDA Chief Executive also stated, Romania is an active member of the European Defense Agency and the total worth of the programs and projects in which Romania participated at EDA exceeds 60 million euro so far. EDA published on Tuesday calls for the third and last proposals request for future preparatory action of EU regarding research in the defense area, worth 25 million euro. "For those who are interested, EDA will organize an information day and a brokerage event in Brussels on 11 April. I encourage all research industries and institutes of Europe to actively participate", EDA Chief Executive mentioned.

Event was organized by Romanian Ministry of Defense (MApN) and the European Defense Agency (EDA).

Source:RRA, AGERPRES.Translated by Miruna Matei