The Council and the Parliament reach a political agreement on a programme for agile and rapid innovation in defence

On 15 July, the Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional political agreement on the proposal to establish a Programme for Agile and Rapid Innovation in Defence (AGILE), a new €115 million instrument designed to provide rapid, agile and targeted financial support to small and medium-sized enterprises – including start-ups and scale-ups – that are developing emerging and disruptive defence technologies. The agreement reached today ensures EU support for SMEs across the Union, enabling them to play a central role in defence innovation.

SMEs are drivers of technological progress in critical defence sectors in Europe, but they need support to move from prototypes to operational capability. AGILE addresses this need.

The programme was designed to stimulate innovation through the fast-track award of grants and access to testing and certification. It provides a mechanism for Member States to participate in defining the challenges, with a view to ensuring that the products developed meet the capability requirements of the Member States. It simplifies public procurement of products supported by AGILE.

The co-legislators have worked together constructively and pragmatically to ensure that this pioneering programme can be implemented and become operational within a matter of months. AGILE will accelerate defence innovation amongst SMEs across the Union and demonstrate that SMEs and start-ups can provide technological solutions to Europe’s capability needs, as well as play a role in reducing Europe’s strategic dependencies. This will help to secure greater support for SME innovation in the next multiannual financial framework.

Key elements of the agreement

The co-legislators have reached an agreement on the programme, which includes the following elements:

• focus on SMEs and disruptive innovation: the agreement confirms the programme’s special focus on SMEs, start-ups and scale-ups working on emerging and disruptive defence products, such as the adaptation of civilian technologies for defence applications, with a view to bridging the gap between development and deployment;
• maintaining speed and scope: the agreement retains the accelerated four-monthtimeframefor the award of grants, as envisaged by the Commission, thereby reinforcing the programme’s role as an agile complement to the EU’s existing set of defence industrial instruments;
• linking with major defence industry contractors: the agreement will facilitate links between SMEs and major defence industry contractors – for example, through matchmaking activities – to encourage the adoption of products supported by AGILE;
• access to testing: the agreement confirms fast-track access to testing and experimentation facilities, in order to address one of the main obstacles for SMEs when bringing products to market.

Next steps

The Council and the European Parliament must now formally endorse the provisional agreement. It will then undergo legal and linguistic finalisation before being formally adopted by the co-legislator. Once adopted, the Regulation will enter into force 20 days after its publication in theOfficial Journal of the EU.

The new programme is on track to become operational in early 2027.

For further information: Council of the EU