The European Defence Agency (EDA) awaits a last round of market feedback from industry before launching final consultations with member states Cyprus, Greece, Romania, and Spain to launch a programme in 2020 to modernise or procure Leopard 2 main battle tank (MBT) fleets. The effort will aim at upgrading to Leopard 2A7 equivalents or acquiring them, according to the agency.
The EDA is preparing to launch a programme in 2020 for four member states to upgrade or procure Leopard 2A7 equivalents (photo of Greek Leopard 2HEL that will be modernised). (Hellenic Army)
“We’re aiming for maximum commonality among them as they upgrade their MBTs,” an EDA source told Jane’s on 8 July, adding that the programme will involve approximately 200 Leopard tanks, plus a purchase of a new tank battalion by Romania, with all the upgrade work worth “several hundreds” of millions of euros. The programme will include upgrade options for recovery, engineering, and bridging vehicle variants.
The four countries’ Leopard tank fleets currently vary from the Spanish Leopard 2E and Greek Leopard 2HEL, which are equivalent to the Leopard 2A6 version, to Romania’s ageing 2A5 model.
Following exploratory talks in 2018, after which a potential group of nine EDA countries interested in the upgrade idea shrank to today’s four, the agency issued a preliminary market consultation (PMC) to industry in April 2019. It calls on the latter to propose the most economical technological solutions to bridge as many of the requirements as possible among the four countries.
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