IntroductionWith its pragmatic, cost-effective and results oriented meth-od of work, the European Defence Agency (EDA) offers multi-national solutions for improvement in capabilities, at a time where defence budget constraints foster the need for better collaboration.

Having the mission to support Member States and the Coun-cil on the improvement of Defence capabilities, EDA naturally adopts a capability-driven approach.

This approach is wide-ranging as the capability to act in a crisis is often reliant on various factors, among them the strength of the EDTIB. Without a strong EDTIB, efforts to sus-tain and improve Europe’s military capabilities are unlikely to succeed.

The EDTIB StrategyOn approval of the European Defence Technological and In-dustrial Base (EDTIB) Strategy in 2007, the Defence Ministers recognized the maintenance of a strong EDTIB in Europe as a fundamental underpinning of the Common Security and De-fence Policy. Moreover, the EDTIB Strategy describes the vi-sion for the future size and shape of the EDTIB which should be competent, competitive and capability-driven and should also set out the way to get “from here to there” interpreted in different Roadmaps agreed by Member-States.

On Key Industrial Capabilities, one of the EDTIB Strategy Roadmaps it has been recognized the need to determine “which key industrial capabilities must be preserved or de-veloped in Europe” so as to safeguard what the EDTIB will be able to provide, now and in the future, and which cutting-edge equipment and systems the European Armed Forces require. With the work well underway on Future Air Systems and Ammunition, the first two areas EDA addressed, Member States decided EDA to expand its work to the Land Sector.

Why the Land sector?Representing roughly 25% of the defence sector, Land sys-tems is a cross-cutting sector of high importance on stra-tegic issues related to the Common Security and Defence Policy.

Land systems are the most deployed systems in military operations lead either under EU banner or multilateral deci-sion. Lessons Learnt from operations demonstrate the need for improvement of interoperability amongst the EU armed forces and thus better cooperation including Pooling & Shar-ing activities is more than ever a necessity.

This sector concerns a diversity of know-how ranging from platform integrators to technologies providers, able to man-age complex systems. This management role requires a whole scale of skills covering the understanding of tech-nologies, comprehension of sub-systems and management of programmes.

In many aspects, the European Land DTIB offers very sophis-ticated products fulfilling the whole range of the European armed forces needs. The level of technology is very high and in some cases is world-leading. On the other hand, this sector is also characterized by overlapping, fragmented and redundant structures let alone the serious defence budget cuts, affecting land as all the rest industrial sectors.

EDA’s work on the Land industrial sectorOn the implementation of the EDTIB Strategy, the EDA has commenced a major initiative to strengthen the Land technological and industrial base in Europe named as “Future Land Systems-FLS”.

EDA’s objectives while addressing the Land industrial sector could be summarised as follows:

• Toprovideabroad,transversaloverviewandknowledge of the Land sector;

• Tobetterdefinealongtermvisionofthesector;

• Togatherallrelevantstakeholders,tryingtodevelop a commonly shared view;

• Tomonitortheworkachievedthroughthedifferenttools and to identify at least the most critical gaps but also priorities;

• Finally,tosupportMemberStates’decisionmakers for future actions.

Future Land Systems

Fact sheet

www.eda.europa.eu

Fact sheet

www.eda.europa.eu

Roadmap and Implementation Plan studyWhile a broad European FLS network is under development following all activities, to support its work, EDA in December 2011 signed a study-contract with a view to:

• PrepareaFutureLandSystems(FLS)Roadmap-forexisting, upgraded or even innovative future systems- identi-fying the key industrial capabilities (including technologies, processes and skills) in the Land sector of the European De-fence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB).

• ThisistobesupportedbyanImplementationPlanwith prioritised actions for maintaining and developing those areas of the European DTIB of strategic importance with a time horizon divided into near term, midterm and long term.

The awarded study-contractor is a consortium of 17 Euro-pean companies active in the land sector, all members of ASD/ELDIG, managed by BAE Systems, reflecting Industry’s willingness to cooperate but also the level of Industry’s ex-pectations from EDA.

The envisaged results from EDA’s work will support Member States’ discussions and finally decisions on future capability development activities, collaborative initiatives in the area of R&T and D including the consequent investments and why not to prepare where possible the potential for armaments cooperation, always aiming to fulfil EDA’s core mission: to improve the EU’s defence capabilities.

Last update: 04/06/2012

More information is available at:http://www.eda.europa.eu