The European Parliament adopted today a report on the impact of the financial crisis on the defence sector in EU Member States.

The report is particularly timely as it comes at a moment when the Member States, forced by radical budgetary austerity measures, are looking into possible pooling and sharing initiatives to reduce costs, given the impact of the financial crisis on the defence sector.

At the same time, the Libyan intervention has reminded Europeans that they are already lacking a number of crucial military capabilities, while other capabilities could soon disappear due to the cuts.

The report adopted takes a comprehensive approach to examine areas where progress is possible to do more through greater cooperation, such as action in the following areas:

• Better coordination of defence planning

• Pooling and sharing of capabilities

• Supporting defence research and technological development

• Building a European defence technological and industrial base

• Establishing a European defence equipment market

• Finding new ways of EU-level funding

After the vote, ALDE MEP Norica Nicolai (Partidul National Liberal, RO), Vice-Chair of SEDE (Security and Defence) Committee commented :

"This report is crucial as the constant reduction of Member States’ defence budgets poses a serious threat to European security and defence capacity. For these reasons, pooling and sharing inside the CSDP is the only solution that can allow us to combine a coherent and sustainable fiscal policy whilst also maintaining support for EU defence capabilities. "

Notes: The implementation deadline of two important Directives for the defence market (Directive 2009/81/EC on defence procurement and 2009/43/EC on intra-Community transfers) expired during summer 2011. The Commission now is justified  to propose a more efficient European market in defence equipment.

The next Multiannual Financial Framework, as well as the next Framework Programme for Research to find new cost-efficient ways of supporting military capability development in Europe are also under discussion.