Bulletin 14 - "Bridging Efforts" Special Bulletin - European Defence ...

Conference assessment
and way ahead
A word from the Chief Executive
The Agency’s fifth Annual Conference, having gathered over 300
participants, has delivered a wealth of information. No doubt,
the Conference was deemed most timely and the outstanding
commitment of the speakers and the audience alike showed the
sharp interest in “Bridging efforts – Connecting Civilian Security
and Military Capability Development”.
The Lisbon Treaty is underlying our debate, providing a solid
political basis and mandate to work closer together between the
civil and military dimension. While the detailed implementation of
the Treaty, the development of required concepts and the consolidation
of respective roles and responsibilities will take some
time, there are some “low hanging fruits” which we can develop
further on a pragmatic basis. With Ms. Ashton being High
Representative, Vice-President of the Commission and Head of
the Agency and with the new Crisis Management and Planning
Directorate in place, EDA is ready to provide the best possible
support to civil-military cooperation in the interest of its participating
Member States.
The Conference has enabled us to address ‘civil-military cooperation’
as a transversal topic, touching upon issues from ‘lessons
identified’ in operations to the coordination of capability
planning processes and possible cooperation on R&T issues.
While Conference participants were able to pinpoint some key
aspects and outline possible future developments, the real work
for all of us – Member States, industry and European institutional
stakeholders – will start now. We will have to identify the
right answers to some very concrete questions.
What capability domain may be tackled as a priority as being
particularly promising in terms of civil-military synergies?
What R&T cooperation projects to be set up in a complementary
approach?
What armaments activities to be taken forward as a result of
this conference?
How to make sure that the European industry remains closely
associated to those efforts?
Based on the food for thought provided, I would like to highlight
some of them, where I see EDA playing a role in the future. The
good news is that we are not starting from scratch and that we
are able to build on projects and initiatives that have already
looked at civil-military interfaces in a number of areas.
Firstly, certain thematic areas have clearly been emphasised, in
most cases taking up priorities that are included in the Capability
Development Plan and have been highlighted by the Council in
November 2009 as areas for strengthened synergies.
• Communication and Information Systems (CIS) and sharing
of information and intelligence: the issue of timely information
collection, sharing and dissemination to both civil and military
crisis management actors has been highlighted. Information
Management is a key area and EDA will further investigate this
particular issue.
• Medical Support is an area of direct relevance to civil and
military stakeholders and further synergies shall be explored.
• Logistics: EDA’s third Annual Conference dealt with the
particular issue of logistics and since then EDA has been at
the forefront in developing a Third Party Logistics Support
(TPLS) Platform. Experience has proven that TPLS has been
used extensively by civilian actors to increase the visibility of
business opportunities and identify commercial service provision
in support of civilian crisis management or disaster relief
operations.
• Maritime Surveillance: this area cuts across the capabilities
and R&T domains and needs a common vision to bring about
the necessary synergies between civil and military. The Report
of EDA’s Wise Pen Team, consisting of former Admirals from
five different Member States, argues for a comprehensive
vision on Maritime Surveillance. EDA’s technical work on
MARSUR will continue, focusing on ‘networking’ as well as on
Future Unmanned Aerial Systems.
• Space: we need to look into the matter of what space can
contribute to the overall capability development process, building
on current programmes and initiatives taken on the civilian
side and systematically exploring synergies with EU institutions
and the European Space Agency in areas such as Earth
Observation, Communication means, Data Relay and beyond.
• Unmanned Aerial Systems: the area of UAS air traffic insertion
is a strategic one. We need to further coordinate with the
European Commission a strategic roadmap and with ESA on
specific demonstration aspects (UAS Command and Control).
The technology roadmap developed by an EDA mandated industrial
consortium (Air4All) needs to be further implemented
and build on existing activities such as the EDA project on a
Mid-Air Collision Avoidance System (MIDCAS).
• Air Traffic: EDA could commit to further raise awareness
among our participating Member States on what is at stake for
the military community with regard to the Single European Sky
Initiative and provide support in further consolidating a defence
position across Member States, including on standardisation
issues and regulations.
EDA Special Bulletin : Bridging Efforts | 9 February 2010 | 35