Greece achieved a great success in the Field of defence systems development: Four different European partnerships, coordinated by Greek defence industry companies, competed for and received funding in competitive European Defence development programmes for innovative systems.
It is the first time that defence capabilities development programmes are being funded by the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP), which aims at supporting the competitiveness and innovative capacity of the EU defence industry.
Our country participated in the above procedure with four (4) programmes, which were set up by consortia of companies, and which concern the development of a tactical UAV system, a software for detecting threats in cybersecurity, a support software for decision-making in maritime surveillance matters and the development of a tactical system with state-of-the-art technologies in telecommunications.
Forty proposals from EU Member-States have been submitted and following an assessment by the European Committee, 16 were approved, amongst which all Greek proposals. It should be noted that two proposals concern programmes developed under the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO).
With a total EU-funded budget amounting to 27 million euro, companies, universities, research institutes and Ministerial departments will work intensively over the next five years, in order to present contemporary, innovative systems, whose configurations received the best reviews by experienced European evaluators and were approved by representatives from EU Member-States’ Ministries of Defence.
Greece’s success is of critical importance. This is actually the first time that the Ministry of Defence coordinates and organizes companies and universities with a view to strengthening Greece’s Defence, given that all operational requirements have been specified by the Hellenic National Defence General Staff.
It should be noted that the announcement of the Minister of National Defence, Mr. Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, on a national UAV six months ago is taking shape. It will start being implemented, based on a Greek plan and EU support, which (the EU) will finance an important part of the former with regard to its planning.
The Minister of National Defence congratulated all those who have worked diligently to lead our Country at the vanguard both from the Armed Forces and from the business, academic and research community and underlined that our country actively supports the further strengthening of the European Defence Industrial Development Programme that exploits our country’s potential and strengthens National Defence. Given the current challenges and the unstable geopolitical landscape, the strengthening of EU’s strategic defence autonomy and the development of a stable joint industrial and technological basis is all the more urgent.
Furthermore, he underlined that through this original funding secured, our Country promotes the implementation of the Domestic Defence and Industrial Strategy’s aims, the meeting of PESCO’s commitments, the development of Greek defence products and the meeting of national operational needs.
