European Defence Agency

The European Defence Agency has been announced for a very long time since as early as the Treaty of Maastricht, a European Agency for armaments was evoked. Then the principle of its creation was decided in June 2003, and it became a reality in July 2004 when the Council of the European Union adopted the joint action establishing its principles of operation.

The Agency’s vocation is to federate and amplify the actions of the tools already created within a coherent framework. It shall exert a political role of impulse and control for the benefit of the Member States.

It intervenes in a context of development of the capability initiatives of the EU, such as the missions of Petersberg (1999), the European Capabilities Action Plan (ECAP)* in 2001 or more recently the Headline Goal 2010 (2003). Therefore, the functioning mode of the Agency was considered and conceived following the logic of a capability approach.

The four main missions of the Agency result in four branches in its central administration:

  the capability branch, which has to develop defence capabilities in the field of crisis management by promoting and co-ordinating the harmonisation of military requirements;

  The Research and Technology (R&T) branch, which will directly manage the contracts of co-operative defence research. It will act mainly as a "catalyst":

• to promote research in strategic technologies for the future needs in the field of defence and security,

• to strengthen the effectiveness of the European defence R&T;

  the armaments branch, which will work to promote co-operative defence equipment acquisitions;

  the industry/market branch, which will be in charge of encouraging the creation of a competitive European defence equipment market and implementing policies aiming at strengthening the Defence Technological and Industrial Base (DTIB).

(*): more information only available in French

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