Abbreviation OCCAR-EA Staff 270 (November 2016) | Director Timothy Rowntree Website www.occar.int | |
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Type Intergovernmental organisation Purpose European armament cooperation | ||
The Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation (French: Organisation conjointe de coopération en matière d'armement;OCCAR) is a European intergovernmental organisation which facilitates and manages collaborative armament programmes through their lifecycle between the nations of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
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History
OCCAR was established on 12 November 1996 by the Defence Ministers of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Legal status was not achieved, however, until January 2001 when the parliaments of the four founding nations ratified the OCCAR Convention. Other European nations may join OCCAR, subject to their actual involvement in a substantive collaborative equipment programme involving at least one OCCAR partner and ratification of the OCCAR Convention. Belgium and Spain joined the organisation in respectively 2003 and 2005.
Other States can participate to OCCAR programmes without becoming a Member State. Currently the EU and/or NATO members Turkey, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Finland, Sweden, Lithuania and Poland participate in one or more OCCAR programmes without being a formal member.
Structure
The highest decision-making body within OCCAR as corporate organisation is the Board of Supervisors (BoS). The OCCAR programmes are each supervised by a Programme Board (strategic decisions) and a Programme Committee (operational decisions). The programmes are executed by the OCCAR Executive Administration (OCCAR-EA) in accordance with the decisions of the supervisory bodies. OCCAR-EA is headed by the OCCAR Director and consists of a Central Office and the Programme Divisions. OCCAR-EA employs approximately 270 staff members.
Current programmes
The 13 programmes currently managed by OCCAR are the following: