Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have announced a joint procurement of ammunition that will be for the first time conducted through the European Defense Agency.
Baltic states join forces for ammunition procurement
12th March 2013, 17:31
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The Baltic states are going to buy up to 50 million euros' worth of ammunition for the Carl Gustav anti-tank weapons, the Estonian Defense Ministry told BNS. Estonia is procuring ammunition both for defense forces' training and in order to stock up on wartime supplies.
This is the first time the Baltic states are buying ammunition via the European Defense Agency, the ministry's deputy secretary general for defense investments Ingvar Parnamae said. "We've organized regional joint procurements together with Latvia and Lithuania before. Now a regional project has become a European project," he said.
In his words, the European Defense Agency will essentially shoulder all the arrangements and the Baltics only will have to choose the best offer.
The joint Baltic procurement is part of the agency's pooling and sharing policy. It has previously carried out two joint procurements, most recently a 228 million euro logistics procurement for Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany.
Estonia has previously pooled resources with Sweden to buy individual equipment for troops and with Finland to obtain medium-range radars.