French President Emmanuel Macron, who calls for strengthening the foundations of European defense, announced that France, Estonia, Hungary, Belgium and Cyprus are jointly purchasing Mistral short-range surface-to-air air defense missiles.
“This is a very nice example of the sovereign cooperation of the Europeans of a very effective type that has not been sufficiently covered until now,” the French news agency quoted the President of the Republic as saying at an air defense conference in Paris. .
A presidential advisor told the news agency that the five European countries signed a memorandum of understanding to purchase “hundreds of Mistral missiles,” noting that “this is the first joint purchase of this type of equipment.”
The Mistral surface-to-air missile is manufactured by the European multinational company MBDA. The development of the device on the basis of the French SATCP missile began in 1974, and its first version was introduced into the French army in 1988, and it can reach targets at a distance of 6 km.
France organized the Paris Air Defense Conference to coordinate European positions after Germany launched the European Air Defense Initiative (Euro Sky Shield) in October with the participation of 17 countries, but it was not supported by France, Italy or Poland. The idea is to buy German (Iris-T), American (Patriot) and Israeli (Arrow-3) air defense systems.
A few days ago, word got out that Senator James E. Resch, the ranking Republican member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, halted a $735 million arms sale to Hungary. feathers on resolution a For The Washington Post She made it clear: Hungary must accept Sweden’s accession to NATO if it wants to obtain the weapons package, which includes 24 HIMARS missile launcher batteries and more than 100 missiles with their components and support.
Gergely Golias later said that there were no meaningful negotiations regarding Hungary’s purchase of the HIMARS missile system from the United States. He claimed that there was neither a declaration of intent nor a contract, and the minister did not know if there were negotiations about this thing. The Ministry of Defense says that the government requested information about the missile system last year, but since it did not receive a response from the American side, they considered the matter closed.
