Ms Dinka Dinkova:

I thank the Deputy for the question. Parts of it go beyond the competence of myself and my colleagues here and, in fact, of the Directorate-General that we represent.

We look at defence more from an industrial perspective and what has to be done to assist member states in ramping up their defence industrial capabilities so that they are up to the level needed to ensure our common security defence and meet the requirements set up by NATO, such as the 5% investment in defence. In general, security and defence policy is the domain of the European External Action Service, EEAS. The objective of the European defence programmes we are managing is to strengthen European industry and independence in our industrial capacities and reduce our dependencies, whether they are on components, raw materials or defence products. That is why, in most of the European programmes, there are certain thresholds as to the involvement of third-country partners or how much of the budget can be spent on components originating from non-European countries. There are new notions in the new programmes on the table about the concept of European authority.