Under the European Defence Fund, the Commission already proposed to allocate €90 million from the EU budget (2017-2019) to fund defence research in areas previously agreed with Member States. The first project, run by Ingegneria Informatica S.p.A, has now been awarded a €1 million grant. In 2018, the next series of grant agreements will be signed.

Background:

The European Defence Fund is designed to coordinate, supplement and amplify national investments in defence. By pooling resources, individual Member States can achieve greater output and develop defence technologies and equipment that may not be feasible on their own. Increased collaboration reduces duplication, promotes standardisation of equipment and ensures better interoperability of systems used by the armed forces in Europe. The Fund will also foster innovation and set off economies of scale thus reinforcing the competitiveness of the EU defence industry.

The Fund has two strands – focused on research ("research window") and development and acquisition of key defence capabilities ("capability window").

• Under the "research window", more grant agreements will be signed in January 2018. At the beginning of next year, the 2018 work-programme with a budget of €40 million will be made public together with calls for proposals for competitive research. Member States and the Commission will also soon start working on the 2019 work-programme.
• For the "capability window", the Council has recently agreed on the Commission's proposal for a European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP); the European Parliament will discuss the text in the first part of 2018.