News 360 5 December 2022 - by Daniel Stewart
The European Commission has approved this Monday €1.2 billion to finance 61 European Defence collaboration projects, with which it wants to support high-level defence capabilities with programs for the development of next-generation combat aircraft, armoured vehicles and ships, as well as critical defence technology in the fields of space, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and medical countermeasures.
Among the defence areas that will receive European funds are air combat initiatives, which will receive €190 million in total, while €150 million will be allocated for improving land combat, €103 million for naval capabilities and €100 million for anti-aircraft defence and missile development.
Likewise, €50 million will be invested in space projects and €38 million for cyber defence capabilities, in a call which, according to Brussels, will benefit cross-border and small companies, with 43 percent of the allocated aid.
Among the projects that will receive more funds is the European hypersonic defence interceptor, endowed with €100 million, which seeks a European interceptor to achieve greater manoeuvrability and ability to respond to air threats.
Likewise, the initiative to standardize the air combat forces, promoting interoperability in the management of missions in the European air forces will have €74.8 million, and another €60 million will finance the European patrol corvette project to have a "modular, flexible, interoperable, ecological and multipurpose ship, which will allow European navies to face the challenges of the 21st century".
It should be noted that 31 of the selected projects are in the research phase, while the other 30 are already being developed, most of them within the framework of the EU's Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) projects, through which the Member States coordinate their efforts in the defence industry.
