Yesterday morning in Rome, at the St. Regis Hotel, was held the press conference of the MBDA (Matra BAE Dynamic Alenia), the main European consortium in the field of missile technology and defense technologies. The CEO of MBDA, Antoine Bouvier, and the Executive Group Director Strategy of MBDA, as well as Managing Director of MBDA Italia, Pasquale Di Bartolomeo. Immediately after the welcome greetings, Bouvier spoke about the development of MBDA in the last four years, with the revenues and the order portfolio increasing, with the first ones reaching the 4.7 billion while the latter the figure of 15.9 billion euros . Astronomical figures of the will of MBDA to invest in the development and reliability of its products. These two factors have allowed us to create an extensive network of trust in the various European and non-European countries, giving MBDA the opportunity to compete with the two major US companies, namely Lockheed and Raytheon.
"Competition is essential to increase investment for development", says Bouvier, emphasizing, however, also the collaboration between industries.The next step, of this collaboration, will be to insert Germany into the group, which expressed a greater willingness to integrate in the 2016 White Paper concerning, precisely, security and future of the German defense The other European NATO country that is starting to enter the MBDA is Spain, which even during the austerity measures imposed by Brussels has been able to fully plan the industrial defense policy. Spanish chapter is still long to end since the largest supplier of the Iberian Armed Forces is the rival Raytheon.
"Once MBDA manages to close a contract with the Spanish government - declared Di Bartolomeo - the domestic market will be even wider, as will European cooperation". A collaboration that, answers Bouvier: "It will not be affected in any way by the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union". This is because all that MBDA has done has been nothing more than to sign state-by-state agreements, such as the recent France India agreements for the supply of missiles for Rafale fighters and the contracts signed with Qatar for the supply of defense systems coastal MCDS and armament systems of new ships purchased by Fincantieri. Over all the cooperation between the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe in terms of security and defense is very strong and, this will come, as the CEO of MBDA has always said: "Solidified in the 2017 with specific agreements between the United Kingdom and European countries".
The collaboration, at European level, allows MBDA to integrate the various national skills and its industrial fabrics, making many products required on both the domestic and international markets. In fact, exports are very numerous and this allows the various national industries to increase revenues and, consequently, expenses. These are points to be preserved and implemented, especially with regard to collaboration, which MBDA is increasing more and more. In recent years, MBDA has seen an increase in the requests for the development of the new SPEAR (photo aperture) missiles that will reinforce the F-35 Lightning II, as well as the continuous modernization of the CAMM, which in the CAMM-ER version the base for air defense. Another object of the development is the MAR-ER, born as coastal batteries and now become multirole. "These missiles are in the feasibility study phase in order to equip the Eurofighter Typhoon with an anti-ship system"said Di Bartolomeo, a great opportunity for Italy, since it is the producer of this missile system.
Adding these points, you can understand how big the MBDA economic income has been in recent years, which has allowed us to increase both technical and personal investments exponentially, so much so that even in the 2017 the recruitment plan will continue. started in 2013. Assumptions that will also be envisaged for Italy, obviously against: "A very high level of preparation". This statement shows how important it is to invest both in training and in military spending, which fails to approach in the slightest that 2% requested by NATO, even if Italy, especially through Leonardo and other partners of MBDA, has been able to invest even exceeding the imposed spending limits. Spending limits that should be revised to avoid losing an important cooperation agreement with the United Kingdom regarding the construction and development of modern CAMM-ER, ground-air and air-to-air missiles, which could lead to the loss of a very important segment for national exports.
The hope has concluded Bouvier is that the 2017 is a year as the 2016, which represented a very important year for MBDA, given that: "We have achieved all our goals by investing in the future, giving more and more confidence in our brand and increasing our order backlog, which has reached a level never before registered since the birth of MBDA.".
