Armaments agency set to welcome UK and Italy

Date: 20/06/1996

By Elizabeth Wise

ITALY and the UK are preparing to join the Franco-German armaments agency in the coming weeks.

“We expect the UK and Italy to apply officially in the coming weeks,” said Franco-German Procurement Agency Director Jean Yves Normand this week.

The agency plans to delay its 1 July formal launch date so that London and Rome can sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in September before a four-nation launch in the autumn, said Normand, speaking at an industry seminar hosted by Forum Europe.

His words were confirmed by a British Ministry of Defence official, who said: “It is all systems go as far as the UK is concerned.”

In agreeing to consolidate their industrial and technological bases, the new members must abide by agreed management and arms acquisition principles and - perhaps most politically difficult - renounce the principle of juste retour, whereby governments try to ensure that their benefits from cooperating on a transnational project will be equal to their investment.

Instead, said Normand, members will reap their rewards over a longer term through multiannual programmes.

The British defence official said there were still some “minor points” to be ironed out in the MoU, but added: “We have no major points of difference.”

The UK, France and Germany together represent some 80&percent; of Europe's military industrial capacity and three-quarters of its arms exports. Adding the UK to the agency will be especially significant in the area of procurement: British Aerospace is Europe's biggest and most profitable military hardware supplier.

The initiative was launched in 1993 to step up defence cooperation between Paris and Bonn, and coordinate both governments' policies on procurement and industrial management. While the agency should coordinate long-term requirements of the two nations' armed forces, it cannot set defence policy.

Projects ranging from missiles to tanks to telecommunication satellites fall under its wing, as do research and development.

Italy and the UK are the only EU member states to join in the Franco-German project so far, but Normand said others were welcome to apply. “The day we have projects with other countries, the agency will be open to them,” he said.

Anticipating fears that the four-nation club might compete with the European Armaments Agency project, Normand said it would never become a supranational arms export agency, adding that export policy would always be set by national governments.