UK and Germany hold equipment cooperation talks at Lancaster House, with Deep Precision Strike on the agenda

The United Kingdom and Germany held the latest meeting of their Ministerial Group on Equipment and Capability Cooperation (MECC) at Lancaster House in London on 15 October, the UK Ministry of Defence said on 16 October. Defence Readiness and Industry Minister Luke Pollard hosted German State Secretary for Armament, Innovation and Cyber Jens Plötner.

What was discussed

The meeting brought together senior officials and military leaders to review progress on joint capability programmes and the industrial partnership. Among the flagship programmes on the agenda was Deep Precision Strike, which the ministry describes as a joint UK-Germany initiative to develop long-range strike capability. The statement gives no details of the system, timetable or funding.

The talks were framed under two existing agreements: the Trinity House Agreement of October 2024, which sets a bilateral cooperation programme across air, land, maritime, cyber and space, and the Kensington Treaty of July 2025, which the ministry calls the strategic framework for the relationship. The UK team included National Armaments Director Rupert Pearce, and Germany was also represented by its National Director for Armaments, Vice Admiral Carsten Stawitzki.

Pollard said: “Germany is one of our closest and most valued defence partners, and today’s talks demonstrate our determination to turn that ambition into real capability for our armed forces and real opportunity for our defence industries.”

Industry panel and wider context

After the meeting, Pollard and Plötner took part in a panel at the German Embassy in London with Dr Philipp Kerth, co-founder and chief executive of German defence technology company Hypersonica, and Katherine Williams, a vice president at Rolls-Royce. The ministry says the panel took stock of defence-industrial progress and identified practical priorities.

The ministry notes that the meeting followed the Prime Minister’s visit to Berlin on 8 October, when the two countries agreed to deepen cooperation on space and to set up a UK-Germany Counter-Hybrid Partnership against grey-zone threats. It describes the talks as part of a programme of UK-German engagement in the lead-up to the EU-UK summit.

Germany is also building defence-industrial links with other partners, including Greece, as in Dendias and Pistorius at the Crete Missile Range: from cooperation to joint production of defence systems.