The European UAV market is further closed to Israeli manufacturers

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Europe goes alone on MALE UAV’s

A plan by companies in France, Germany and Italy to launch a European medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAV program will get a boost this week when defense ministers sign a Declaration of Intent for a two-year definition study.

According to Defense News , the defense ministers of the three countries will sign the agreement at a meeting of European defense ministers in Brussels on Monday, an Italian defense source told Defense News.

“The agreement is for a definition study and for preliminary project for design,” the source said.

The two-year study will also involve the European Defence Agency, he said.

A deal by the governments to launch studies was in the cards, but not until the Paris Air Show next month.

In March, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said a new European drone would be ready by 2025 and able to fly in European skies.

The new agreement is a response to lobbying efforts for a European MALE program by the firms Dassault, Alenia Aermacchi and Airbus.

They jointly called for a MALE program on the eve of the Paris Air Show in 2013, claiming it would pool resources, allow for the incorporation of emerging European certification requirements, and safeguard jobs and know-how, while guaranteeing “European sovereignty and independence in the management of information and intelligence,” they said in a statement.

Since then, little progress has been made and the European MALE market is currently dominated by the US Reaper and Israeli-designed machines.

Israeli UAV manufacturers in recent years made a huge effort to sell its systems to Europe , mainly to France and Germany. The main effort was made by Israel aerospace industries (IAI) that has offered its Heron- TP uav.