The German, Italian and French ministers of defense will sign a letter of intent today in Brussels, launching technical studies preparatory to the production of a European-made drone scheduled to be ready by 2025.
The letter discusses “defining studies to last two years aimed at determining the operational prerequisites with the view of conceiving a prototype,” an unnamed diplomatic official tells AFP.
Ursula von der Leyen, Roberta Pinotti and Jean-Yves Le Drian will sign the document on the sidelines of a meeting of 28 European ministers of defense which is taking place in Brussels.
The drone is expected to be of the MALE type (Medium Altitude Long Endurance) and the cost of development is expected at about a billion euros.
The project will be jointly undertaken by Airbus Group, Dassault Aviation and Alenia Aermacchi, three companies which submitted in May 2014 a concrete proposition to jointly build the drone by 2020-2025. The global drone market is currently dominated by the United States and Israel.
— AFP contributed to this report.
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