Europe's defence innovation gets a fast track

Members of the European Parliament approved today by a vast majority (with 536 votes in favour, 101 against and 16 abstentions) the AGILE programme, a new €115 million EU instrument for fast defence innovation, scheduled to launch next year.

"AGILE is essential to empower Europe’s defence SMEs, start-ups and scale-ups to innovate, produce and deliver the capabilities that our Armed Forces need in just four months, less than half the usual funding time. Thanks to AGILE, we can take decisive action before today’s technologies become tomorrow’s obsolete solutions," says Eszter Lakos, MEP, EPP Group lead negotiator on the file in the Security and Defence Committee.

"The EPP Group pushed several improvements to the Commission’s proposal including through facilitated matchmaking between innovative companies, traditional defence players and the Armed Forces of the Member States," Lakos continues. 

"With AGILE, we are cutting red tape and opening the door for start-ups, SMEs and new players in Europe’s defence industry. EPP ensures that this programme's output has a realistic chance of leading to market uptake and becoming a military capability," underlines Jan Farský, MEP, EPP Group negotiator in the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy. 

"Previous defence programmes were unnecessarily slowed down by politicking and interinstitutional fights. With AGILE, we have shown citizens and industry that European legislative action can be swift and constructive," Farský concludes.