EMS to deliver tracking tech for EU ops

September 10, 2009 by admin · Comment
Filed under: Syndicated Industry News 

LONDON, Sept. 10 (UPI) -- EMS Global Tracking has been selected to deliver its Blue Force Tracking systems to the European Union to support advanced situational awareness capabilities.

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European Union Limits Offsets

July 2, 2009 by Matthew Potter · 1 Comment
Filed under: Business Line, Events, production program 

Offsets are the practice of when one country buys a system or services from a company in another they require that company to invest in their economy. They are not uncommon in the defense business. Right now India especially has very strict offset rules that have led to some controversy.

The European Union announced yesterday some rules to make offsets more targeted and defense related among its member countries. In the past some country’s have requested offset investment in their civil economy rather then in defense work. Normal procedure is to buy services, parts or maintenance related to the contract awarded.

The new rules require that the offsets be defense related. They also limit the total value to no more then equivalent to the awarded contract. Most often offsets are some percentage of the value so these rules are not to onerous. The EU has moved recently to tighten up competition among the various countries penalizing Italy for favoring their own internal industry over other available sources for example.

The offset rules announced will probably have limited effect since many of the projects are already shared among a variety of suppliers such as the Typhoon. If there is a decline in defense spending and the number of large contracts available there will probably be more efforts to expand competition and restrict protectionist policies.

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French Senators Discuss A400M Termination

February 11, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Business Line, Companies, Countries, EADS, Events, France, Military Aviation, commercial aviation, development program, logistics, production program 

We have written in the past about the struggles EADS has had with the A400M program. Now CNNMoney.com reports that the French Senate has released a report about the program. The report continues the negative drumbeat about the delays to the delivery schedule, but continues support for the program. One Senator involved though said it might be cheaper to end the program and start afresh. The initial contract does allow the French government, as well as those others buying the aircraft, to end their support for the program and actually have EADS pay back any investment into it. This would amount to a loss of this over two-and-a-half billion Euros to EADS. If the program fails the plan would be to buy C-17 and C-130 aircraft from America which would be somewhat humiliating for the European Union.

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Italy to be punished for sole source aircraft contracts

October 17, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Agusta Westland, Contract Awards, Italy, Military Aviation, commercial aviation, production program 

Earlier this year the European Union had judged that Italy violated contract laws by awarding helicopter contracts only to state owned Agusta. Now that Italy has failed to take any mitigating steps they are moving to punish the country. Italy had claimed national security reasons for only considering Agusta to provide the aircraft. This is part of an effort by the EU leadership to allow competition across at least the countries of the EU.

For more see Rueters.com.

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