Belgium’s Naval Group Steers the E=MCM Initiative to Success with European Commission Leadership
As part of the European Defence FUND (EDF), Naval Group Belgium, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Naval Group, will lead the E=MCM initiative for a period of three years. This comes on the heels of the successful culmination of the MIRICLE project*, which wrapped up at the close of 2023, where 21 European partners will collaborate in the consortium to establish a sovereign European ability in future mine warfare.
Given that the threat of maritime mines continues to challenge both civilian and military naval sectors, European navies are refining their skills to effectively tackle these dangers across vast maritime regions. In this context, the E=MCM initiative has been proposed to the European Commission as part of the 2023 solicitation from the European Defense Fund. Now selected, E=MCM is slated to commence in the final quarter of 2024, perpetuating the efforts initiated towards the next generation of “made in Europe” countermeasure innovations, while bolstering the European naval community.
Building on the findings achieved during the MIRICLE project, which focused on developing state-of-the-art MCM platforms and toolbox technologies for enhanced MCM operations, the European Extended Mine Countermeasures (E=MCM) initiative aims to bridge developmental gaps for the capabilities of the next-gen toolbox (toolbox 2.0). It aspires to conceptualize, prototype, and demonstrate an integrated system-of-systems architecture featuring scalable unmanned autonomous toolboxes alongside intelligent platforms and decision-support tools for mine-countermeasures (MCM), tackling the threats posed by drifting, tethered, and buried mines.
The aim of E=MCM is to generate new prototypes of MCM capabilities ready for industrialization within the European Union.
The consortium of the E=MCM initiative consists of 21 beneficiaries from 11 European countries:
NAVAL GROUP BELGIUM
NAVAL GROUP SA (France)
EXAIL ROBOTICS SAS (France)
EXAIL ROBOTICS BELGIUM (Belgium)
THALES DMS (France)
NEDERLANDSE ORGANISATIE VOOR TOEGEPAST NATUURWETENSCHAPPELIJK ONDERZOEK (The Netherlands)
ELWAVE SAS (France)
OFFICE NATIONAL D’ETUDES ET DE RECHERCHES (France)
VLAAMS INSTITUUT VOOR DE ZEE (Belgium)
AGENŢIA DE CERCETARE PENTRU TEHNICĂ ŞI TEHNOLOGII MILITARE -MILITARY EQUIPMENT AND TECHNOLOGIES RESEARCH AGENCY (MINISTERUL APARARII NATIONALE) (Romania)
DOTOCEAN N.V. (Belgium)
SISTRADE SOFTWARE CONSULTING SA (Portugal)
BELSS LTD (Latvia)
SPACE APPLICATIONS SERVICES NV (Belgium)
TERRA SPATIUM SA (Greece)
SOCIEDAD ANÓNIMA DE ELECTRÓNICA SUBMARINA S.M.E (Spain)
SAAB KOCKUMS AB (Sweden)
NAVANTIA (Spain)
Baltic Institute of Advanced Technology (Lithuania)
ATLAS (Germany)
ROYAL IHC (The Netherlands)
* Commenced in December 2021, the MIRICLE (MIne RIsk CLearance for Europe) project was a 24-month collaborative effort led by a European consortium directed by Naval Group Belgium and supported by both the European Commission and the Defence Ministries of the participating nations.
