{"id":422749,"date":"2026-04-06T11:30:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T11:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/422749\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T11:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T11:30:20","slug":"can-agile-boost-the-eus-defence-readiness-ask-the-euronews-chatbot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/422749\/","title":{"rendered":"Can AGILE boost the EU\u2019s defence readiness? Ask the Euronews chatbot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n         Published on<br \/>\n            06\/04\/2026 &#8211; 8:00 GMT+2\n            <\/p>\n<p>EU member states\u2019 defence research and development (R&amp;D) amounted to \u20ac13 billion in 2024. Investments increased by an additional \u20ac4 billion in 2025, according to European Defence Agency estimates. <\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-ad__placeholder__logo\" src=\"https:\/\/static.euronews.com\/website\/images\/logos\/logo-euronews-stacked-outlined-72x72-grey-9.svg\" width=\"72\" height=\"72\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n          ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-ad__placeholder__logo\" src=\"https:\/\/static.euronews.com\/website\/images\/logos\/logo-euronews-stacked-outlined-72x72-grey-9.svg\" width=\"72\" height=\"72\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n          ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>The US and China still maintain a significant lead over Europe. In 2024, Washington invested \u20ac138 billion in defence innovation, while China\u2019s estimated defence industry R&amp;D reached \u20ac38 billion, with a focus on AI, hypersonic, and quantum technologies. <\/p>\n<p>The EU\u2019s Programme for Agile and Rapid Defence Innovation (AGILE) supports \u201cnew defence players\u201d to accelerate the development of new defence technologies. <\/p>\n<p>The plan allocates \u20ac115 million to 20-30 projects involving SMEs, startups, tech innovators, and AI scale-ups working on dual-use and defence technologies. Projects will receive \u20ac1 million to \u20ac5 million, depending on their scope and maturity. <\/p>\n<p>AGILE promises to support innovators from the technical development phase to transition to real-world use. It foresees four-month funding approvals and deployment to member states&#8217; national forces within 3 years. <\/p>\n<p>The plan also aims to shorten time-to-deployment as conflicts evolve on timelines of weeks. Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen called AGILE \u201cthe missing piece of the puzzle that helps defence solutions reach the market\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>The European Commission has put forward a proposal for a regulation establishing AGILE as part of its March 2026 defence package, which is now being transmitted to the European Council and Parliament.<\/p>\n<p>Curious about how companies can benefit from AGILE? Ask the Euronews AI chatbot! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 06\/04\/2026 &#8211; 8:00 GMT+2 EU member states\u2019 defence research and development (R&amp;D) amounted to \u20ac13 billion&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,189220,32266,18,5766,19,3536,17,15928,82],"class_list":["post-422749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-common-security-and-defence-policy","tag-defence","tag-eire","tag-european-commission","tag-ie","tag-innovation","tag-ireland","tag-new-technologies","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116357537869313800","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}