EU-Ukraine Task Force on Defence-Industrial Cooperation to begin work this Monday
The EU-Ukraine Task Force on Defence-Industrial Cooperation will hold its first meeting on Monday in Brussels, European Commissioner for Defense and Space Andris Kubilius said.
“Today is an important day. Today we announce the creation of the inter-institutional EU – Ukraine Task Force. And today Ukrainian and European experts will convene for the very first meeting. To assist integration of our defence industries, to facilitate development of joint projects or joint procurement processes,” he said on Monday in Brussels as part of the Second Ukraine-EU Defence Industry Forum.
“I hope that this Joint Task Force will bring new energy into our cooperation. And will help us to implement important provisions of the White Paper. As I understood from our dialogue – both with Ukrainian and European defence industries – one of the major challenges, which very much unites perhaps everybody, who is in this room – is the issue of security of supply chains. Let's deal with this challenge by uniting our efforts – let's look who among us is ready to expand production of nitrocellulose or explosives. And who is going to ramp-up production of small engines, which are used by drones,” Kubilius specified the tasks of the group.
He also pointed to the work of the EU Defence Innovation Office in Kyiv, which has ambitious planned activities for this year.
“To share expertise – for example on unmanned systems. To support research and development. On military and dual use. To support projects on ‘future soldier systems' and drone-based mass munitions,” the European Commissioner named the Office's agenda.
Kubilius also assured that the EU wants to do even more and increase the resources and activities of the EU Defence Innovation Office.