Three French MEPs have petitioned the European Parliament to repeal Directive 2009/81/EC. Sophie Montel, Dominique Bilde, and Florian Philippot of Marine Le Pen’s National Front contend that the directive jeopardises the French arms industry by obliging public procurement procedures to take place “at the European level”.
At the request of the Federal Finance Auditing Authority, Switzerland is amending a section of its industrial participation regulations. The government has changed the so-called ‘additionality code’..... The required amount of Swiss added value has also been raised.
Every country in Europe has its own offset policy, and each country is interpreting Article 346 TFEU and the defence directive in a different manner. As a result, offsets in Europe have become increasingly dysfunctional, particularly in Eastern Europe. That was the grim impression made during a presentation on Europe’s offset environment.
The management consulting firm Avascent’s second survey of offsets in the aerospace and defence sector found that only 31 percent of respondents are satisfied with the transparency and openness of government partners; a full 69 percent are dissatisfied.
The Colombian government has declared its offset policy a success and is preparing to make revisions. The policy was introduced eight years ago. The new focus will be on technologies that are not available in the general market and which do not carry high costs.....