On Thursday 16 November 2017, our annual conference was held at the Maison de la Chimie, in partnership with the Ministry of the Armed Forces, on the theme of «Defence funding: what solutions for what needs?».
The conference opened with a speech by’Olivier Martin, Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Chair in Defence Economics and General Secretary of MBDA.
ROUND TABLE 1: FINANCING REQUIREMENTS
Guillaume Schlumberger, The Director of Defence Strategy, Foresight and Counter-Proliferation (DGRIS - Ministry of Defence) opened the first round table on funding requirements. The context and strategic autonomy set out in the 2017 Strategic Review were recalled.
Le General Vincent Carré, The Deputy Head of Plans (EMA - Ministry of Defence) then detailed the operational requirements to meet the objectives set by the Strategic Review.
Philippe Duhamel, Thales's Deputy Managing Director of Defence Mission Systems detailed the industrial requirements to meet the objectives set by the Strategic Review.
To conclude this first round table, Christophe Mauriet, The Director of Financial Affairs at the SGA (Ministry of Defence) presented the process from the expression of requirements to financial programming. Download C.Mauriet's presentation.
At the end of the first round table, Jean-Jacques Bridey, Deputy for the Val de Marne and Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee on National Defence and the Armed Forces, took the floor to outline the issues to be addressed in the next Military Planning Act.
ROUND TABLE 2: TYPES OF FINANCING
The second round table on types of financing was opened by the’IGA Bertrand Le Meur, The Director of Industrial Services and Economic Intelligence at the French Defence Procurement Agency (DGA) spoke about the specific actions taken by the DGA to support start-ups, SMEs and ETIs in the DTIB.
Jean Belin, Professor of Defence Economics at IHEDN, presented the ways in which our main partners finance defence. Download J.Belin's presentation.
Olivier Martin, The Secretary General of MBDA then went on to describe the current and future contributions of European cooperation.
To conclude this second round table, Jean-Yves Battesti, Naval Group's General Secretary discussed the contribution of exports to maintaining France's DTIB.
Finally.., Florence Parly, The French Minister of Defence did us the honour of closing the conference with his speech. The audience will remember the recognition of the Ministry of the Armed Forces with this quote: «The Chair in Defence Economics and the Observatoire Économique de la Défense are symbols of a useful and well thought-out positive dynamic. It is a sign of the symbiosis that exists between our researchers, our economists, our students, our manufacturers and, of course, our armed forces».»
The video of all the speeches will be published on our website very shortly.
