At a conference of the association Mars & Mercurius Europe in Strasbourg Karl von Wogau, Secretary General of the European Security Foundation, called for the creation of a European Internal Market for security and defence goods.

About 7500 persons participate in missions under the European Security and Defence Policy, 3000 soldiers and 4500 civilian personnel. It is the responsibility of the European Institutions to make sure that they dispose of the adequate equipment for observation, telecommunication, navigation and transport fore their dangerous missions.

This effort is at this time often fragmented between the 27 Member States of the European Union. It is therefore necessary to create a common market for security and defence goods which does not yet exist in the European Union.

There are four main instruments for the creation of a European Internal Market for Security and Defence:

• the European legislation for procurement of security and defence goods

• the European legislation concerning intracommunity transfer of security and defence goods

• the use of common technical standards

• European certification

As an example for possible savings Wogau mentioned the cost of the NH-90 helicopter project which had a total cost of € 20 billion. Four billion out of these 20 were the cost of certification in the Member States. In the civilian field European certification has been introduced, while in the field of security and defence this is not yet the case.

The next steps for the implementation of the Internal Market for defence goods have to be the implementation of two directives of the European Parliament and Council by the Member States of the Union concerning procurement and intracommunity transfer.

As far as technical standards are concerned, further work is necessary from the NATO standardisation bodies as well as CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, the European Standards Institutes.

In the field of certification, a concentrated effort is necessary concerning unmanned aerial systems.