EDA and OCCAR are privileged partners in defence capability development and delivery.

The purpose of capability development in the EDA framework is to translate military requirements into feasible solutions that can be taken forward through cooperation, including armaments programmes. Thus EDA has a role to promote multilateral armaments programmes and to prepare, at the request of the Member States concerned, such armaments programmes to be managed by OCCAR. OCCAR may be involved in EDA work during the so called Preparation Phase of armaments programmes in order to facilitate a seamless transfer of the subsequent armaments programme to OCCAR, when appropriate. The programme preparation in EDA includes the harmonisation of (military) user requirements and the planning of the programme execution. This means that OCCAR is considered "downstream" of EDA in the capability development process.

To formalise the in practice already existing co-operative relationship, EDA and OCCAR signed an Administrative Arrangement on 27th July 2012.

A Security Arrangement between EDA and OCCAR, complementing the Security Agreement of 2012 between the European Union and OCCAR, was signed on 8 December 2014.

More Information on EDA:
European Defence Agency (EDA)