Paul Taylor, Senior Fellow of Friends of Europe. The United States should wholeheartedly embrace EU initiatives to strengthen European and NATO defence capabilities and offer joint incentives for transatlantic industrial collaboration instead of niggling over the rules of the EU’s defence fund (EDF), a new report urges. The study by journalist and researcher Paul Taylor…
Defence ministers have shared their expectations and views ahead of the presentation of the first full Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD) Report which will be delivered to the Steering Board in November 2020. Ministers took the opportunity to highlight their expectations and share success factors they deem important ahead of delivery of the first full…
The European Defence Agency (EDA) has for the first time been chosen to support the development of a PESCO project as an Agency initiative, in line with the PESCO commitment to use EDA as the European forum for project capability development. The Austrian-lead project, CBRN Surveillance as a Service (CBRN SaaS), will provide a rapidly…
The OCEAN2020 project, managed by a 42 partner consortium from 15 EU countries, has successfully launched its first sea demonstration in the Gulf of Taranto, Italy. The OCEAN2020 Live Sea Demonstration involves a total of 9 unmanned assets and six naval units from Italy, Spain, Greece and France. The deployment of manned and unmanned systems,…
Western nations need to build closer partnerships with the private sector to sharpen NATO and the European Union responses to hybrid security threats, participants at a unique day-long exercise concluded on Thursday. “Hybrid warfare is now real warfare,” Jamie Shea, Senior Fellow at Friends of Europe and former Deputy Assistant General at NATO. “This is an…
Italy has a central role to play in Europe’s response to growing security challenges in the Mediterranean region, but the current government’s “suicide diplomacy” is reducing its influence in the European Union and NATO just when it needs their support, according to a timely new report by Friends of Europe published this week. The study…
I welcome today’s announcement by the Joint Investigation Team that four suspects will be prosecuted for crimes in relation to the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July 2014. This is an important milestone in the efforts to uncover the full truth and ensure that justice is done for the killing of 298 people…
A NATO force of 2,500 German, Dutch and Norwegian troops and 1,000 vehicles is currently taking part in exercise Noble Jump 19 at the Zagan training range in Western Poland. Noble Jump is the main training opportunity for NATO’s Spearhead Force, the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), and tests how well its different units…
NATO has issued the following statement concerning Russia’ s failure to comply with the International Nuclear Forces (INF Treaty) originally signed between US President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev in Washington in 1987. Following nearly six years of U.S. and Allied engagement with Russia, on 4 December 2018, NATO Allies declared that Russia has developed…
