Along with other Allies, Lithuania signed a Protocol of Intent at the NATO Summit in Ankara seeking to strengthen national defence industrial and production capabilities and develop multinational cooperation on joint procurement.
The agreement aim to satisfy national defence and security needs of the Allies even more effectively.
The document commits the undersigned to increase the resilience, responsiveness and security of defence supply chains, accelerate acquisition and integration of key military capabilities, and strengthen interoperability of the national defence systems.
The tightened cooperation is expected to make raise resource efficiency, defence acquisition effectiveness, and the speed of providing the needed military capabilities.
The countries also agreed to form procurement coalitions for concrete capabilities under the NATO Demand Aggregation Process (REPEAD), which will help coordinate multilateral acquisitions aligned with NATO’s defence planning objectives while facilitating the production capabilities of the defence industry.
The Protocol of Intent also covers coordination of public procurement methods, so that defence industry can have more flexibility, more favourable conditions for long-term investment and a reduced period between the contract signature and product introduction.
The Allies have agreed to work on strengthening the national defence industry system compatibility, share data on the long-term capability planning, and find ways to integrate collective commitments to national budgets and public procurement systems. A tighter cooperation is expected to improve the accessibility of pivotal defence capability, improve collective security, and add to a stronger European and NATO defence industry in the long-term.
