PARIS (Reuters) – France’s defence ministry said on Tuesday that it could order 1,000 Mistral air defence missiles worth about 500 million euros ($545.6 million) as part of a joint purchase with four other European states.
President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that France – along with Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia and Hungary – had agreed to make the purchases.
Macron had added he had made some progress in convincing some of France’s EU allies to look at a more home-grown defence strategy, in contrast to a German-led effort to jointly procure air defence systems from outside Europe.
The Mistral air defence missiles are built by the company MBDA. Airbus and BAE Systems each have stakes of 37.5% in MBDA, while Italian company Leonardo has a 25% stake.
($1 = 0.9165 euros)
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by John Irish)