The Minister for the Armed Forces for France, and his counterparts from Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia and Hungary, on Monday 19 June 2023 signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) for the joint acquisition of the Mistral 3 ground-based air defence system.
The MBDA MISTRAL MANPADS is a very short range air defence weapon system, firing the MISTRAL fire-and-forget missile. It features a lightweight man-portable launcher. It can be easily transported and operated from the ground, a vehicle, a building or a ship.
Led by the French Ministry for the Armed Forces with support from MBDA, the intent is to implement a joint acquisition of Mistral 3 by the French procurement agency Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA) on behalf of all the partner countries.
Such an initiative is a concrete illustration of the European Council’s willingness, in the current geostrategic context at the borders of Europe, to reinforce through cooperation the defence capabilities of the European Union (EU) and its member states.
A joint acquisition could benefit from the EU support and allow scale economies to be made so as to incentivise Member States to procure defence products jointly while reinforcing the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB) competitiveness.
MBDA is a multi-national European company, specialising in complex weapon systems. MBDA’s 13,000 employees work together to support the national sovereignty of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, and other allied countries worldwide.
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