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France convened a meeting of defence ministers and military representatives in Paris on Monday (19 June) to discuss European air defence, underlining the importance of European sovereignty.
French President Emmanuel Macron convened members of the ‘European pillar’ of NATO for a meeting in Paris on Monday (19 June) for a collective reflection on threats from the sky following his calls for a more united European defence initiative in Bratislava last month.
“Europe must take the lead in ensuring its own security,” French Armed forces minister Sebastien Lecornu said after the meeting.
“The aim [of the meeting] is to have a 360° exchange on the threats and dangers coming from the air – be it anti-drone combat, very high altitude, the boundary between sky and space, etc.,” a source in the French Armed Forces ministry told EURACTIV, specifying that this should focus on a European-only structure rather than buying capabilities externally.
The meeting – first of ministers, then military officers – was held on the margins of this week’s Paris Air Show, a trade show for aviation and air defence industries.
“The starting point is obvious: the war in Ukraine raises the issue of air safety in Europe,” a second source in the French Armed Forces ministry said.
The move comes in the wake of Germany’s push for joint procurement of air defence systems. However, Macron’s initiative differs from Berlin’s in terms of emphasising European strategic autonomy by prioritising procurement within the EU.
‘Made in EU’ marketing
The European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), launched by Berlin last autumn, unites 17 countries to jointly procure air defence systems, namely from Germany (IRIS-T), the United States (Patriot) and Israel.
France and Italy, which make the SAMP/T missile defence system by MBDA, are not part of the format. Paris has been adamant in assuring that Monday’s conference is to be interpreted as a challenge to Berlin’s initiative.
French government officials have described it as a forum for European discussion that aims to find a common European strategy while strengthening Europe’s defence industrial base, which is favoured by France.
“We have the duty and the means to take the lead in ensuring the security of our continent,” French Armed forces minister Sebastien Lecornu said after the meeting.
The conference “is not part of a confrontational context with the US and NATO”, Paris also said.
However, according to a French armed forces ministry source, the US-made Patriot missiles’ “delivery time is extremely long, so the question is where we want to draw the line between speed and sovereignty”, implying that if it takes as much time to ‘buy European’, they might as well procure from home industries.
Immense needs
The Baltic states recently called for more support, requesting “rotational air defence” on their territories, and are looking to purchase new systems, in an upgrade of their current non-permanent system.
NATO military allies assured them that such support was in the works at the alliance’s meeting in Brussels last week, according to diplomats.
The meeting gathered 20 minister-level representatives. Absent EU member states were Finland, Latvia, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Slovenia, according to a participants’ list seen by EURACTIV.
Despite not being NATO members, Cyprus, Montenegro, Sweden and the United Kingdom participated in the talks.
The EU has also agreed to launch a joint procurement of ammunition and missiles to supply Ukraine, with priority given to EU-based companies and equipment made in the bloc.
Strategic capability
Since last spring, a large part of the military packages sent to Kyiv by its Western partners includes air defence systems, missiles and ammunition of different kinds, proving how critical establishing “air dominance” is.
“What we’re seeing in Ukraine is a good example where there’s a war of attrition with artillery, because nobody has air superiority,” Tim Flood, Boeing’s Senior director in Global business development told EURACTIV in the margins of the meeting in Paris.
“We know that when you own the skies, you own the air picture, and you sort of win the war,” he also said.
Ukraine’s neighbour Moldova has also been asking for its partners for aid in this regard.
“We didn’t need air defence before the war in Ukraine, whereas now there’s been a change in the threat situation,” Moldova’s Defence Minister Anatolie Nosatîi told EURACTIV.
Now, the country needs “investment into more equipment, more training, replacement of Soviet-era equipment”, the defence minister said.
[Edited by Alexandra Brzozowski/Alice Taylor]
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