What kind of defence industry does Europe need?
During peacetime, Europe’s defence industry must strive to remain at the cutting-edge of innovation and ensure technological superiority over potential adversaries. To this end, it must continuously improve existing products and produce new ones, react to evolving technologies and threat scenarios, and challenge potential adversaries by developing new and innovative concepts, disruptive technologies and new applications.
If faced with a conflict, the European defence industry will need to be able to ramp-up production quickly in order to address the need for much higher delivery rates than in peacetime. Demand for maintenance, repair and overhaul of in-service equipment will radically increase as well, along with the need for spare parts. The industry will also need to be able to react at significantly increased pace, in response to the lessons that constantly emerge from the battlefield and to urgent and sometimes unplanned operational needs. This requires a very close and trustful relationship between the defence ministries, armed forces and industry.
