Defence Minister, Nicolae-Ionel Ciuca participated in the Reunion of Foreign Affairs Council in the Defence Ministers format (videoconference format) on Friday, November 20th). The reunion was preceded by the working sessions of the Steering Committee of the European Defence Agency.

During the working sessions of EDA's Steering Committee, the defence ministers approved the orientations of the Council on EDA's activity for year 2021 and approved the final report after running the Coordinated Annual Review Process of Defence (CARD) for 2019-2020.

In his allocution, the defence minister EU initiatives emphasized Romania's contribution to the consolidation of European defence by actively participating in the on-going initiatives in the defence field ( PESCO, - EDF, CARD and Military Mobility), indicating that the CARD results allow us visualize an overall image of the European defence capabilities chart and that the results will contribute to the establishment of short, medium and long-term priorities of the Common Security and Foreign Policy of the European Union.

EDA Reunion started with a review of the evolutions of the important files, the talks focusing on two major topics: the launching of the Strategic Compass, which is a strategic orientation paper in the field of Common Security and Defence Policy, respectively the conclusions of the review process of PESCO.

The defence ministers had a consistent exchange of opinions during the session referring to the Strategic Compass and formulated orientations regarding EU's needs in the field of defence and security, focusing on ways in which EU's relevant policies, initiatives and instruments can be catalyzed in order to ensure a symmetric answer to the future challenges.

In this context, minister Ciuca expressed his support for the increase of EU's response capacity to the crises and threats of the security environment, with focus on the EUs close neighborhood.

Also, the minister emphasized the potential of the Strategic Compass as an instrument which further consolidates the capability planning and development process at the EU's level, in full complementarity with NATO. Not the least, the Romanian official emphasized his support for the consolidation of resilience and pleaded for an overall strategic approach with the partners.

With respect to the strategic review of PESCO, the defence ministers saluted the results obtained after running the process and formulated political guidelines lines of actions in order to achieve the goals set for the second stage of the initiative (2021-2025).

PESCO's strategic review is a detailed diagnose of the initiative at the closure of its first implementation stage (2017-2020), consisting in ambitious recommendations and objectives that would stimulate and enhance cooperation at Eurpean level in the 2021-2025 timeframe.

In his allocution, the defence minister saluted the results obtained after the first results of the PESCO review process and appreciated that PESCO, together with EDF and CARD, stay the main instruments of EU's defence architecture.

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EDA presented the defence ministers from the participating countries the first report of CARD tightly developed with the European Union External Action and the EUMS. CARD report identifies 55 new cooperation opportunities by means of which the member states can develop defence capabilities. The report recommends to focus the common development efforts on the future generation of six types of capabilities: the main combat tank; the soldiers' equipping systems; the European patrolling ship; countering the UAS - Anti-Access/Area-Denial; space defence; improvement of military mobility.

Also, the report identifies collaboration opportunities regarding the research in the defence field. These cooperation opportunities can be taken into consideration on volunteer basis by the member states in order to be implemented by means of collaborative projects, especially in PESCO and EDF formats. EDA's press release can be accessed at:

https://eda.europa.eu/info-hub/press-centre/latest-news/2020/11/20/ministers-presented-with-new-opportunites-for-joint-military-capabilities-to-overcome-fragmented-european-defence-landscape.

The Press Office