European Defence Fund starts in earnest as official launch kicks off 2021 spending
The European Commission has opened a €1.2 billion war chest for defence research, seeking ideas on everything from medical responses to chemical weapons to satellite surveillance and improved warheads.
Announced on 30 June, the approval of the first full work programme for the European Defence Fund “paves the way to the immediate launch” of 23 specific calls for R&D proposals, said the Commission. The fund, a controversial attempt to better integrate European defence, has a €7.9bn seven-year budget, of which around a third will go to research, with the rest supporting actual defence procurement.