According to a note from the Italian Defense Ministry, published this Monday by the digital website Difesa & Sicurezza, a meeting chaired by that country’s national armaments director, General Luciano Portolano, and his Hungarian counterpart, Laszlo Tombol, evaluated projects for the development of the military Cooperation.
Portolano, who also serves as Secretary General of Defense of Italy, stressed the importance of strengthening ties between the two countries in the military sphere given the current international socio-political situation, characterized by a complex regional scenario and profound geopolitical changes in the world.
For his part, Tombol noted his country’s interest in deepening cooperation with Italy to implement strategic plans to modernize and expand arms production, based on the terms of an intergovernmental agreement signed in Budapest on February 28, 2013.
The talks focused on combat helicopters, with particular interest from the Magyars in the new AW-249-NEES, for reconnaissance and escort, with a focus also on the development of unmanned aerial systems, and means of their prevention, detection, identification and neutralization.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani called for an increase in defense spending in Europe to boost the ability to deal with regional crises during the LIX security conference in Munich, which culminated in Germany this Sunday
Tajani emphasized in this forum that “European security is necessary if we want to be stronger within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)”.
“We need to invest more in European defense if we want to protect ourselves,” said the minister, who in a recent interview alluded to the need for this continent to increase its military potential to balance US hegemony as the leader of NATO.
On January 26, in statements to the newspaper La Stampa, the head of Italy’s diplomacy acknowledged that “Europe has no real foreign or defense policy. We are always after the Americans.”
jf/ort