Austria to join European airspace defense system Sky Shield
Austrian Chancellor Nehammer speaks of a “drumbeat”. However, Austria’s participation has been under discussion for months.
The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) called it a “drumbeat in European defense policy” in its dispatch on Saturday. Austria is planning to join the European initiative for the Sky Shield air defense system. Confidential negotiations have been underway for weeks to make this accession possible, it said.
Since there has been speculation in the social media for days about possible news that would shake the ÖVP, this “drumbeat” could also be read as an attempt at media “distraction.” After all, the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) already announced in March of this year that it would like to participate in the Sky Shield. Even then, there was talk of corresponding talks at the EU level.
After a meeting in the spring with her German counterpart Boris Pistorius (SPD), Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner (ÖVP) had summed up: “Everyone is very pleased that Austria will be involved. Austria is interesting not least because of its geographic location; it lies at an interface between the threats from the east and the south, Tanner said. Discussions about Austria’s participation in the Sky Shield project have been ongoing since at least the fall of 2022.
Source: Der Standard – Translated from the German
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