As Europe ramps up defence investment, including the €800bn ‘ReArm Europe’ initiative announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and the UK’s confirmation of its timeline for defence spending to hit 2.5% of GDP by 2027, the Lancaster House Treaty is putting Britain and France at the forefront of the continent’s future defence and security.

The landmark Treaty, signed in November 2010 by David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, established agreements for the sharing and pooling of materials and equipment, the building of joint facilities and access to each other’s defence markets, as well as industrial and technological co-operation. All of which will be fundamental to the new world order we are witnessing emerge in current geopolitics, where Europe can no longer depend, unquestioningly, on the support of the United States.  

Earlier this month, Kevin Craven, CEO of ADS Group, told the UK Defence Committee that fast jet training represents one of the key opportunities that could be delivered under the Lancaster House Treaty, helping to tackle what fellow panel member, Andrew Kinniburgh, Director-General of Make UK, called the ‘crisis in fast jet training’ across the UK, Europe and wider NATO allies, while also bringing down costs through shared investment (instead of developing duplicated capability in competition with each other).

Anglo-Franco collaboration is at the heart of the AERALIS industrialisation strategy, with our flexible light jet system designed from the ground-up to deliver interoperability, scalability and, with civil-certification, ease of cross-border capability sharing throughout Europe.

In February, we opened AERALIS France, expanding our role in European defence and working with EASA to develop our industrialisation programme and air force-as-a-service commercial model, AERFLEX.

With ageing fleets requiring urgent modernisation, AERALIS provides a sovereign, innovative solution for the UK, France and NATO allies, perfectly fulfilling the Lancaster House objectives and delivering to the increasingly urgent requirements for fast jet training and more financially sustainable military light jet aviation.

🔗 Press statement by the President on the defence package 

🔗 Kevin Craven’s (ADS CEO) comments to the Defence Select Committee