Defence`s Feeds

Enhancing EU support for Ukraine: conditions for the European Peace Facility and replenishing capabilities through joint procurement to efficiently enhance military support to Ukraine and the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base
SEDE organises a public hearing on 'Enhancing EU support for Ukraine: conditions for the European Peace Facility and replenishing capabilities through joint procurement to efficiently enhance military support to Ukraine and the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base' on Monday, 6 February 2023 from 17.30 to 19.00hrs in Brussels (room SPINELLI 3G2).

Speakers:

• Daniel FIOTT, Head of VUB Defence and Statecraft Programme
• Sophia BESCH, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace fellow

It will provide an opportunity to assess recent EU defence instruments launched in the context of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. In this regard, the discussion will focus on the EPF, central pillar in the EU's unprecedented provision of defensive lethal military equipment to Ukraine, and the new legislative proposal for a Joint Defence Procurement Instrument, which shall help EU Member States to quickly restock capabilities and enhance support to the EDTIB.

Location : SPINELLI 3G2
Draft programme
Poster
Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Enhancing EU support for Ukraine: conditions for the European Peace Facility and replenishing capabilities through joint procurement to efficiently enhance military support to Ukraine and the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base
On 6 February, SEDE will exchange views with Daniel FIOTT, Head of VUB Defence and Statecraft Programme, and Sophia BESCH, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace fellow in the framework of a Hearing dedicated to the EU support for Ukraine. The Hearing will provide an opportunity to assess recent EU defence instruments launched in the context of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. In this regard, the discussion will focus on the European Peace Facility (EPF), central pillar in the EU's unprecedented provision of defensive lethal military equipment to Ukraine, and the new legislative proposal for a Joint Defence Procurement Instrument, which shall help EU Member States to quickly restock capabilities and enhance support to the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB).
Draft programme
Poster
Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

The European Defence Agency (EDA) issued on 1 February 2023 its call for applications to its first ever EDA Research, Technology, and Innovation Papers Awards. This contest will reward a total of three original and valuable defence-related papers covering technologies, processes and applications for enhanced future defence.  

The winning entries will come up with ideas which, if implemented between now and 2035, would contribute to enhance specific EU defence capabilities. Entries will be judged on their quality and impact, with a special emphasis on technology and innovation to help cover the European Union’s defence needs and shortfalls.

The contest aims to promote and support the work of early career researchers by introducing their work to the defence community, stimulate engagement of innovators to widen their access to emerging and potentially disruptive research, and identify areas in which additional investment is needed to address future defence capability needs.  
 
Each prize winner will receive €4,000. 

How to apply?

The deadline for submitting applications is April 2, 2023. 

The contest rules and application criteria can be found here and here, (plus the annexes to the call for applications here). The prize will be formally awarded during the 2023 EDA Defence Innovation Days later this year. The contest is open to all citizens of EDA participating Member States.  

HEDI 

The prize is part of EDA’s growing role in fostering innovation. Following the EU’s Strategic Compass for EU Defence and Security and the creation of the Hub for EU Defence Innovation (HEDI), EDA is tasked with promoting pathways to cutting-edge military capabilities. 

The EDA awards are part of that task. HEDI serves to stimulate and facilitate cooperation on defence innovation while ensuring operational benefits with related European Commission activities, notably the EU defence innovation scheme, coherence of output with NATO innovation and other EU defence innovation organisations.   

EDA's wider role  

EDA supports its 26 Member States in improving their defence capabilities through European cooperation. Acting as an enabler and facilitator for Ministries of Defence willing to engage in collaborative capability projects, the Agency has become the hub for European defence cooperation with expertise and networks allowing it to the whole spectrum of defence capabilities.  

Member States use EDA as an intergovernmental expert platform where their collaborative projects are supported, facilitated, and implemented. For more details, please see here. 

China expert Travis Whitworth has teamed up with the corporate intelligence firm Ergo, run by RP Eddy, former chief of staff of ex-US ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke. Whitworth, who retired from the CIA in July after two

On 18 January, Presight.ai, a joint venture set up by Emirati artificial intelligence specialist Group 42 and Israel's Rafael Advanced

The French-Moroccan entrepreneur Richard Attias has been poring over plans to expand his business to advise French firms wanting to

Washington - Ergo brings in a Navy SEAL As well as hiring former CIA China specialist Travis Whitworth (IO, 01/02/23),

On 13 January, the US cybersecurity company Intelligent Waves (IW) filed suit before the Virginia Eastern District Court against US

The Russian defence ministry is working on a decree to be submitted to the parliamentary lower house, the Duma, for

Brussels, 1 February 2023 - General André Erich Denk takes up his duties at EDA on 1 February 2023. As deputy to Chief Executive Jiří Šedivý, General Denk will support EDA in its mission to improve European defence capabilities, stimulate research and technology, act as a military interface for EU policies and help develop European security and defence policy.

General Denk was most recently Director Logistics of the EU Military Staff and was previously commander of the Join School of Logistics in Germany, as well as the Joint Logistics Support Group Coordination and Training Centre, Germany’s core facility for training, exercises and certification of national and international joint logistics. During his long career, he also worked as desk officer and deputy branch head for planning issues at Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defence.  

General Denk has undertaken many international deployments under European Union, United Nations and NATO mandates, most recently as chief of staff of the EU Training Mission in Mali. His extensive international expertise means he brings logistics and operational knowledge with him, as well as capability planning and armaments development expertise. 

General Denk said: “I am delighted to join EDA at this decisive point in European defence collaboration. I am committed to supporting Member States develop their defence capabilities together, as well as building up the European Union’s defence capacity and strengthening the European pillar in NATO.”

Born in Rotthalmünster, Germany, in 1967, General Denk joined the German armed forces in 1986. He holds a diploma in mechanical engineering and in addition, graduated from the German Command and General Staff College as well as from the French General Staff College. In addition to German, he is a native speaker of Serbo-Croatian and speaks fluent English and French. He is married and has two children.  

NOTES FOR EDITORS  

1. EDA website: European Defence Agency (europa.eu)
2. German armed forces website: Homepage - Bundeswehr

PRESS CONTACTS

Paul QUINN

Media & Communication Officer

Tel: +32 470 18 14 94

Robin EMMOTT

Media & Communication Officer

Tel: +32 479 86 00 34

Length of video : 113'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Today, the European Defence Agency (EDA) has launched a new project to establish a safe-communication extension for NATO Generic Vehicle Architecture (NGVA) in terms of functional safety. The project which will run over 24 months with a €3,5 million budget, is the first step in a series of Safe NGVA projects that eventually aim to develop and test physical demonstrators in relevant environments in the second and third phases.

Generic architectures are open systems to other entities and give access to data that are usually hidden in proprietary systems. As these systems are becoming more common and widely used in military vehicles, safety is one part of the NGVA that is not defined to an implementable depth.

The Safe NATO Generic Vehicle Architecture (SafeNGVA) project proposes to solve the issue by providing separate safe, but closed, sub-systems or infrastructure that is accessible by other participants in the architecture by one-way-gateways.

Led by Germany, the first phase of SafeNGVA also includes France. It will be carried out by a consortium led by Germany’s Rheinmetall and involves MBDA DE, also of Germany, and Safran, Thales and Nexter of France.  

PROJECT PHASES TOWARDS PHYSICAL DEMONSTRATORS

SafeNGVA in its first phase will seek to define the requirements and design a system architecture for safe communication using the NGVA. The architecture will be validated by different techniques such as performance to robustness tests, to ensure the architecture is conceptually capable of covering all necessary needs for function safety in military vehicles, and a demonstrator and simulation environment for some elements of the NGVA, to provide an implementation close to a real use case. As one of the main goals of the NGVA is to improve interoperability, a demonstration for interoperability between the member states will be performed.

In the second and third phases, the results of SafeNGVA will be used to improve the architecture and validate it further by developing demonstrators for steering a tactical vehicle and by creating a weapon system demonstrator using safety critical hardware and software solutions.

As a project managed by EDA, the initiative can be co-funded by Member States and additional participants can opt in. 

The European Defence Agency 

The European Defence Agency (EDA) supports its 26 Member States in improving their defence capabilities through European cooperation. Acting as an enabler and facilitator for Ministries of Defence willing to engage in collaborative capability projects, the Agency has become the ‘hub’ for European defence cooperation with expertise and networks allowing it to the whole spectrum of defence capabilities. Member States use EDA as an intergovernmental expert platform where their collaborative projects are supported, facilitated, and implemented. What we do (europa.eu)

Former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri is closely involved in the management of new Abu Dhabi-based investment company Nerve Investment, according to information obtained by Intelligence Online. The company was set up at the end of last year as a

For several weeks now, the Court of Justice of the European Union has been overturning EU Council decisions to impose

On January 23, the US Justice Department unsealed the indictment of Charles McGonigal, former head of the FBI's counterintelligence unit

Under bipartisan criticism from Congress after the revelation that President Joe Biden kept classified documents in the garage of his home,

Retired General Jean-Jacques Pellerin lost a Paris administrative court appeal on 12 January in which he had hoped to overturn a defence

Questioned on 26 January by the parliamentary enquiry commission on

The corruption scandal that led to the departure of several deputy ministers and governors on 24 January has given the