As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, following the end of the period of European demilitarisation which lasted for decades, weapons are now being bought intensively, even in countries that have been neutral for a long time, as reported by HRT. Is this an opportunity for the Croatian military industry, which is on the rise and which exports almost 100 million euros of weapons and equipment? Some believe so.
“First we broke the paradigms, that involved the following question: is it possible for Croatian industry to compete in this way using European Union funds? We proved this back in 2016 with 550 million in grants withdrawn by our industry for new developments, products and services that came as global surprises. Now we have a much bigger intervention and I must say that Europe has copied us a little because we’ve proven that modern industry is potent and can boost the competitiveness of entire industrial sectors very well,” said Goran Basarac, president of the Croatian Defense Industry Cluster.
He added that a mechanism called the European Defense Fund, amounting to 7.9 billion euros in total, had been created. It is primarily intended for research and development, but it is evident that certain product capacities will also be created. Croatian-made products of this nature could end up being more and more frequently placed on the market.
“The Croatian defense industry has an opportunity here. We have something to show off on the global market,” he emphasised.
Ivan Jelusic, director of Orqa, believes that the key moment happened in 2020 in Nagorno-Karabakh, when Azerbaijan won a military operation using armed unmanned systems produced in Turkey.
“The war in Ukraine will significantly affect the doctrine and use of unmanned systems in military operations,” he said.
He added that since they started developing their company, they have focused on the production of authentically produced components and components for manned systems in Croatia. As he explained, it is considered extremely important in military operations that the components are from verifiable suppliers.
“Due to a combination of circumstances, our company positioned itself six years ago,” he concluded.
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