European air shield, Admiral Di Paola explains why Italy has not yet signed the Entente

“Italy has not yet signed the agreement on the development of a European Sky Shield Initiative for the air defense, led by Germany. But the reason is purely industrial: our country together with France is specialized in systems T-Sample to improve defense against ballistic missiles and drones”.

so the admiral Giampaolo DiPaola, former Minister of Defence, commented this fanpage.it the news of the signing yesterday of a letter of intent to create a european sky shield from 14 countries, including Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Norway and the United Kingdom, in addition to Finland. You bet like this, for 2025to strengthen the air defense using mainly three systems: the Iris-T Slm, developed in Germany, the Patriot, American, and the Arrow-3, Israeli.

Admiral DiPaula.

Admiral Di Paola, at the moment, however, Italy has not signed the letter. Why do you think?

“In this list of countries there is no Italy, but there is also no Italy France. I understand that in the field of anti-missile air defense there are two great industrial families: one headed by France and Italy, so much so that as anti-missile defense systems the medium-long-range Samp-T is being perfected thanks to the cooperation between Leonardo and Tales, and on the other hand the group led by Germany with the Iris-t system.

It is clear that these countries, especially east-central Europe, have rallied around the German industrial group, which does not have industrial capabilities of this kind, but which sees Berlin as the pivot of its defense from this point of view.”

Do you think you could be a part of that in the future?

“That our country can enter into this agreement one day may well be, but industrially there is a kind of dichotomy. At the moment I don’t know if there is interest in being part of this new venture from an industrial point of view. I believe the meaning of this agreement is all here.”

What, after all, does having signed this agreement tell us about the developments in the war in Ukraine?

“He tells us that, since at this point it is evident that the missile threat is present, as we are seeing in Ukraine, all countries feel the need to strengthen their air defense against missiles Hey drones. Italy is today doing this by developing Samp/t NG systems (where “NG” stands for new generation) for the Army, Navy and Air Force. The east-central world, on the other hand, is regrouping around the German pole. It also tells us that Germany is breaking free from the strong bond it had with France, remember the Aachen treaty and the difficulties the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) project is facing.”

So how is Italy defending itself?

“There is development of the Samp-T NG system that serves to give more impetus to the defense against ballistic missiles, we are investing in these systems for the 3 Armed Forces. The minister also reiterated this. Guerini. We are also making progress in this sector, but with a reality of industrial cooperation different from northern European countries. So we’ll see what happens in the future, but in this sector our country is industrially and politically more connected to the French world. It was then and it is now.”