Fifteen European countries unite to boost air defence capabilities
Fifteen European countries on Thursday announced that they would jointly procure air defence systems to protect the continent under a newly-created European Sky Shield Initiative.
Germany, which spearheaded the project, will coordinate the joint procurements to urgently plug existing gaps with regard to possible air attacks at close range -- including drones -- as well as medium and long-range, and especially against ballistic missiles and cruise missiles which Russia owns, its defence ministry said.
"It is about being able to set prices accordingly and, of course, it is also about being able to support each other jointly in terms of maintenance. So it's a win-win situation for the countries that are part of it," Minister Christine Lambrecht told reporters on Thursday morning.
Fourteen of the countries involved -- Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, and the United Kingdom -- are NATO members. Finland, whose application to the transatlantic military alliance is pending, is also taking part.
"We are open to everyone and we know from many countries that there is still a great deal of interest and we have done preparatory work by starting negotiations in advance in the signatory states," Lambrecht added.
The announcement came just hours after the UK and France announced that they were increasing their deliveries of air defence systems to Ukraine following a wave of Russian missile strikes against Ukrainian cities earlier this week. Germany has also supplied Kyiv with multiple IRIS-T systems.
The ESSI initiative has been championed for weeks by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who dubbed it a "security gain for all of Europe" in a speech in
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