Defence, Perego of Cremnago at ConnAct: “Strengthening national capability and business competitiveness”

Brussels – European military integration can and must be a goal to be achieved, but priority must be given to the industry in the field. The key to the EU’s immediate future lies in making the necessary choices without giving in to impulse. “The common European army is an ideal path; right now, I don’t think it is imaginable to transfer our armed forces under European command,” premised Defence Secretary Matteo Perego of Cremnago, convinced that “what is needed today is to strengthen our capacity, the competitiveness of our companies.”

The undersecretary of defence charts the course at the Connact Defence & Security 2025 event, titled “Common European Defence: Financing and Industrial Integration, organized by Connact, the event platform that fosters discussion between private actors and institutions through moments of meeting and networking, and is precisely a space for discussion in this regard.

“There are too many fighters and too many different ones,” laments Perego of Cremnago in an attempt to explain how and to what extent the coexistence of 27 different systems is neither compatible nor sustainable with the changing needs dictated by changed international scenarios. “The excellent is the enemy of the good,” he points out. “Let’s start doing what is needed.” Developed in terms of integration, it means leaving the dream of a common European army, however lulled by the Italian government majority, in the background, to focus on goals more achievable in the short term.

“The right thing, I believe, is to strengthen the capacity of individual states and industrial cooperation,” insists the undersecretary of Defence, whose “creed” is also about the country. “On our own as Italians, we cannot compete, especially if we think about the big countries,” he says, citing Russia, China, and even more India. In the latter country, he points out and argues, “There are 700 million people with an average age of 25; who knows how many engineers the Indian state will produce.” The challenge is also this: in a Europe where the skilled workforce is scarce and the population ages, exposing it to structural economic weaknesses.

The government accepts this and other challenges related to the new defence agenda. “We support a program to strengthen our defence,” Cremnago’s Perego stresses again, convinced that European Commission initiatives are going in the right direction. “The 2030 readiness plan touches on things that need to be strengthened, such as new technologies and air defences, and on the other hand, it requires increasing the level of investment.”

The task is not an easy one. “Defence cannot be understood as welfare decline,” and at the same time—the undersecretary of defence acknowledges—revitalising the sector’s industry and European industrial integration of the sector means “investing substantial resources in a world where obsolescence is more frequent.” Because, he points out, “a drone today is obsolete after six months.” Moreover, a whole new circuit that requires the absorption of “external” manufacturing players needs to be created. “To innovation also contribute those companies that normally do not deal with defence but can bring technological innovation.”