Fifteen European Union countries including Britain signed the first project under its new defence research fund on Wednesday, the latest small step towards integrating European militaries and their industries. "It's an important moment, we've managed to gather together 42 companies from 15 member states," European Industry Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska told reporters following a signing ceremony. The European Commission has proposed a 1.5 billion euro annual European Defence Fund to support defence capabilities that will include 500 million euros for defence research, up from the current 90-million-euro pilot phase. Leonardo's CEO Alessandro Profumo said it was important for Britain to remain in European defence efforts, partly because the Italian firm has 7,000 staff in Britain. "Not only for us but for the European defence system, we need the U.K.," he told reporters.

Source: dna March 28, 2018 18:45 UTC