European Council launches 13 joint defense projects

The European Council on Tuesday adopted a list of 13 projects to be implemented under the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO).

"Five of the new projects focus on training, covering areas such as cyber, diving, tactical, medical as well as chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense (CBRND) training," the EU body said in a statement.

The other projects focus on enhancing EU collaborative actions as well as capability development on sea, air, and space.

"Today's decision brings to 47 the number of projects that are currently in place," it added.

Established in 2017, PESCO enables 25 participating EU member states to work more closely together in the area of security and defense.