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EU: Green light for EDA

01 August 2004

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EU foreign ministers formally authorised the creation of the Europe Defence Agency (EDA) during a meeting in Brussels on 12 July. The EDA becomes a functioning agency with around 80 staff in 2005. The ministers approved an initial budget of about EUR 1.9 million in 2004 with which to conduct feasibility studies. In the following years the budget will hover around EUR 15 million annually. The agency aims at developing EU defence capabilities for foreign military intervention, promoting and enhancing the European arms industry, strengthening the European military industrial and technological base and creating a competitive arms market for exports. It consists of five departments:

Capability Development Directorate

Research & Technology Directorate

Armament Directorate

Defence Industry and Market Directorate

Corporate Service Directorate

In the process the defence ministers of the bigger countries will be personally committed through their membership of the Steering Board that oversees the agency under the presidency of High Representative Solana. The Steering Board will decide by qualified majority. The Steering Board held its inaugural meeting in the fringe of the informal meeting of EU defence ministers in Noordwijk, Netherlands, in September.

Not only "open projects", where everybody can take part, will be developed by EDA, but also "closed projects" where a small number of states co-operate. The agency will propose criteria for spending efforts and military output and induce the member countries to commit to these levels.

In future years it is possible that a significant amount of money from the EU common budget will flow towards EDA in the so-called framework program, the sizeable security-related research budget of EUR 1 billion per year that the European Commission is planning to begin in 2007.

Jane's Defence Weekly 21.7.04 (Peter Felstead); Defense News 19.7.04 (Brooks Tigner) Europäische Sicherheit 9/04 (Peter Albers)

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