German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht explained that the program, presented by German Chancellor Olaf Scholes, specifically aims to purchase Iris-T and Patriot systems of German and North American origin.
Germany is leading the initiative, which is joined by the UK, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania.
All nations have signed a draft of the mission sent to NATO during the alliance’s defense ministers’ meeting.
Finland, a candidate for membership, joined the programme.
“The new, fully operational and transparently integrated assets of NATO’s air and missile defense will significantly strengthen the Alliance’s ability to defend against all air and anti-missile threats,” NATO Assistant Secretary General Mircea Giona said in a statement.
“This commitment is all the more important today as we witness Russia’s ruthless and indiscriminate missile attacks in Ukraine, which have killed civilians and destroyed essential infrastructure,” he said.
However, several ‘media’ sources cited today by the website Euractive have acknowledged that the “European air shield” may be equipped with an Israeli-origin Arrow 3 missile interceptor system.
France and Poland did not join the effort, although a French source quoted by AFP called it “a good effort” and agreed that NATO “needs anti-aircraft, anti-missile and anti-drone defense systems”.
Paris has argued that its medium-range surface-to-air defense “MAMBA” system is now fully integrated into the NATO Allied Air Command’s chain of command, while Warsaw has said it wants to establish its own air defense system.
At the end of last March, the German government had already agreed to buy an Israeli missile defense system, the head of the parliament’s defense committee revealed at the time.
“Given the threat to Russia and the various weapons systems, it is clear that we have to be interested,” Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann told the Welt newspaper.
Andreas Schwarz, the parliament’s rapporteur for the defense budget, considered at the end of March that “the Israeli Arrow 3 system is a good solution”, which will cost about two billion euros and will be operational from 2025 to 2025. Three locations in Germany.
After years of underinvestment in defense, Germany made a historic U-turn in late February following the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian military.
On February 27, a few days after the start of the Russian offensive, Olaf Scholz announced an exceptional funding envelope of 100 billion euros to modernize the military.
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