Despite these differences, European countries have used international collaboration for more than 30 years to divide up development bills and achieve the economies of scale necessary for our defense products to be competitive in the world market. These individual collaborative programs have bred their own joint venture program companies, such as Eurofighter for the Eurofighter 2000, Panavia for the Tornado, and European Helicopter Industries for the EH101. We also have a number of direct joint ventures with pooled assets and integrated management, such as DASA and Aerospatiale's Eurocopter, Matra Marconi Space, and soon, we hope, Matra BAe Dynamics. Such joint ventures will enable the necessary international rationalization and specialization in centers of excellence. But successful as these joint ventures have been, this collaboration model will not meet the challenges of the future.
Consolidation is necessary.
Europe must continue to respond in this manner, and we do not have long to do it. There is much discussion in the UK about whether the defense industry should be consolidated nationally on a vertical basis similar to the way Germany and Italy have done it, or whether we should be concentrating on European or transatlantic consolidation. The climate for transatlantic cooperation is definitely improving, and the efforts of Secretary Perry and Dr. Kaminski are to be much applauded. However, there are many major obstacles to effective transatlantic collaboration, let alone transatlantic consolidation. U.S. attitudes on security, black programs, technology transfer, and export restrictions, such as allowing control of foreign-owned U.S. defense subsidiaries only through proxy boards, are hurdles.