Brussels and The Hague | On 27 January, the General Manager of the NATO C3 Agency (NC3A) visited Paris to discuss cooperation on command and control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance with senior defence officials. The visit was an important stepping stone to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding that will enable a more efficient relation between France and the NC3A on C4ISR issues.
[defpro.com] With the current financial pressure, the Alliance is looking to leverage the benefits of multinational approaches to capability development. This includes intensified cooperation with NATO Nations on a comprehensive approach to C4ISR issues.
“Our goal is a change of paradigm,” said NC3A General Manager Georges D’Hollander, “Previously, Nations developed national capabilities and then paid a second time to make them interoperable. Today, all Nations only want to pay once and have systems that are ‘born interoperable’. France has a key role to play in this regard while contributing with its C4ISR roadmap in the overall success of this comprehensive approach.”
French authorities underlined that, considering France being now a full member of NATO and recognizing that interoperability is a “must have” in current and future operations, the design, realization and testing of national and multinational C4ISR systems have to be more and more coherent.
Key issues discussed included interoperability, coherent capability development, particularly between long-term capability development and urgent operational requirements, cost-effective reuse of multinational and national capabilities, secure system architectures, and collaborative and open-source capability development.
During the visit, Mr. D’hollander was first welcomed by General Jean-Pierre Devaux, the Director for Strategy in DGA (French Armament Directorate) and met during the morning with the NC3Board principals, General Lapprend from the Joint Staff and Colonel Marc Sirven. The visit included also during the afternoon a meeting with the director of DGSIC, Admiral Pénillard.
Company or Organisation Portrait:
The NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A) is a customer funded agency and, as a part of the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Organization (NC3O), reports to the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Board (NC3B).
The agency comprises around 700 staff, of which around 500 are located in The Hague and 200 in Brussels. In 2008, the procurement of NC3A for NATO amounted to some 300 million Euros. The Agency is organized using a balanced matrix model, with four main areas: the Production area, Sponsor Accounts, Core Segment and Resources Division. The Production area comprises nine Capability Area Teams (CATs) under the Director of Production (DOP) within which projects are executed with each CAT defined according to its area of expertise.
The agency is the lead NATO body for the acquisition and development of Consultation, Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities in support of NATO missions and operations.
