ELDIG’s Presidency to Patria

The European Land Defence Industry Group, ELDIG, is now chaired by Patria. EXPAL’s General Manager, Manuel García-Sañudo, passed the Presidency to Heikki Allonen, the President and CEO of Patria. The ceremony took place at Spanish Pavilion at Eurosatory. The Spanish Presidency begun in June 2012, first led by NAVANTIA and from June 2013 onwards led by EXPAL.

ELDIG serves as a forum for the land systems industry under the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD), which represents more than 2,000 companies from over 20 nations with 752,000 employees. ELDIG is the common voice of the European land defence industry and represents over 100,000 employees. ELDIG’s Presidency rotates within the ELDIG member companies every second year.

ELDIG has strengthened cooperation among main industries, organizations and European authorities and administration. “An example of the achievements is the co-operation with EDA concerning the different roadmaps as Future Land Systems or Precision Guided Ammunition. ELDIG has also introduced its Position Paper with the proposals for the future development projects”, says Manuel García-Sañudo, the former President of ELDIG.

“ELDIG represents the interests of the land defence industries and its main target is to establish a forum that creates a coordinated vision within the industry of the policies and practices that affect the European technological and industrial base. ELDIG is an open group and welcomes also new members”, highlights Heikki Allonen, the new President of ELDIG.

Further information:
Sofía Alfaro, Branding Manager, EXPAL, phone +34 91 7 22 02 52, [email protected]

Birgitta Selonen, Vice President Corporate Communications, Patria, phone +358 40 869 2043, [email protected]

EXPAL develops, produces and integrates a wide portfolio of products and services for the defence and security industries. Its clients are Ministries of Defence and armed forces from around the globe, international organisms and other leading defence companies. Currently, EXPAL’s products and services are employed by over 40 countries all over the world.
www.expal.biz

Patria is a trusted provider of defence, security and aviation life-cycle support services and technology solutions. Patria is owned by the State of Finland (73.2%) and Airbus Group (EADS N.V.) (26.8 %).
www.patria.fi