Greek Dome: Countdown to the selection of the anti-missile shield – The final offers

Then, after being evaluated both operationally and financially, with the cost limited to 2 to 2.5 billion. euros, as announced to have been secured, are expected to be announced to Parliament by Nikos Dendias in February along with the entire armaments package for the next 10 to 12 years.

The financial restrictions are necessary as, despite the fact that for all of Europe, after the war in Ukraine and the election of Trump in the USA, the need to increase defense spending has been set as a priority, Greece, as has been pointed out by the Ministry of National Defense, will have to manage high obligations of 12.8 billion euros, for the period 2024-2035. As Nikos Dendias has stated, he had to prioritize and plan interdisciplinary a list of 852 independent programs, with a budget of 53 billion euros. The 65 armaments programs will eventually proceed.

It should be noted that the two companies, namely IAI with the BARAK MX for mainland Greece, which will form the backbone of the shield, and Rafael with the Spyder All in One for the Aegean islands, have already submitted the first offers to the Hellenic National Defense General Staff for the systems they requested.

SIBAT, the Defense Cooperation Directorate of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, in the first aggregated responses it sent with the prices for the three different systems (including David Sling), according to information from newmoney.gr, ultimately exceeded 6 billion euros. This is a huge difference from the initial 2 billion euros. that had been budgeted.

Business developments and collaborations

Throughout the previous period, there have been intense business developments with IAI mainly taking the initiative in the movements. The Israeli company, which as time goes by makes its presence felt in Greece, seems to have two serious advantages. First of all with the BARAK system, which has begun to be chosen by more and more countries due to its strong performance (according to our information, three different countries have chosen BARAK in the last year).

According to information recently published, Cyprus has also begun to use the BARAK MX, also offering anti-ballistic missile defense and coverage throughout the island with a variety of missiles with great commonality from the same launcher, with coverage from 2 to 150 kilometers of range. At the same time, Barak, in addition to Israel, has already been acquired by additional countries such as Morocco, India in cooperation with which it was developed and was recently selected after a thorough competition, and Slovakia. According to various reports, it was recently selected by the Netherlands for its naval air defense.

It was recently announced that India has additionally purchased more than 70 MRSAM (medium-range surface-to-air missiles) systems from Bharat Dynamics, Israel Aerospace Industries' (IAI) partner in the development of the Indian version of the Barak 8 air defense system. The value of the contract amounts to 29.6 billion rupees (approximately 340 million dollars).

Greek companies

As in the case of India, IAI plans to have a wide range of cooperation with the domestic defense industry and Greek companies, ensuring direct supply through production lines. In this context, the actions of the Israeli company did not go unnoticed, which, after the memorandum of cooperation with the Hellenic Defense Industry, proceeded to similar ones with the Hellenic Defense Industry and MILTECH, while continuing contacts and discussions for cooperation with other Greek companies.

Of course, the highlight of all was the developments at Intracom Defenense, which it acquired 1.5 years ago and announced that Michalis Tsamaz, one of the country's most well-known and distinguished business executives, is taking over the position of president.

At the same time, it increased the company's share capital by 20%, indicating its decision for IDE to proceed with the transition to the new era of the defense industry. In fact, as Mr. Tsamaz, specifying the goals of the company's new era: "Our goal is to continue to pioneer, strengthening both the technological development of our country and its defense armor. For me, it is a national duty to ensure that a Greek defense technology company will "remain at the forefront of innovation, contributing to the formation of a strong and self-sufficient defense ecosystem for our country."