The Diplomat
Indra has been selected in all the proposals it led or in which it participated in the second call of the European Defence Fund, in a total of 14 initiatives that amount to 500 million euros of the 832 million euros allocated by the European Commission in this call, according to the company in a statement.
“With a total of 14 projects selected, one third of the 41 approved by the European Commission, Indra is one of the leading European companies. These 14 projects, of which it leads two, cover all of the company’s key technological areas,” the Spanish company explained.
In this way, the firm has raised to 52 the number of defence projects in which it participates funded by the European Commission since 2018, Europa Press points out.
The company accumulates €164 million in grants and direct contracts and an additional €80 million for around 10 Spanish companies participating in them.
In this context, Indra’s CEO, José Vicente de los Mozos, stressed that the company “is taking on a decisive role” in the development of new technologies that “will mark the future of the sector”.
“Thanks to the support of the European Commission, we will be able to shorten the deadlines to bring to the market innovative solutions that improve the operability and accelerate the digitalisation of the Spanish Armed Forces and the rest of the European countries. Europe’s defence needs Spain’s industrial development and this development necessarily requires Indra’s national leadership,” said De los Mozos.
In this context, Indra sees the main lines of development of its R&D&I supported and gives continuity to initiatives in which it has been working and which were launched in 2019 after the first call of the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP), the precursor of the European Defence Fund.
“Indra is coordinating the continuation of two important projects that were launched in 2019, in connection with two Pesco (Permanent Structured Cooperation) programmes led by the Spanish Ministry of Defence. Firstly, the development of the future Strategic Command and Control system for the European Union (EC2), which will enable the EU’s external action service to achieve the level of ambition set by the Strategic Compass approved by the European Union (EU),” the company said.
Secondly, the development of an electronic attack system (React II), which, according to the company, is capable of ensuring the “freedom of action of allied aircraft” in environments with a strong presence of anti-aircraft systems.
