Germany approves funds for NATO surveillance plan

The Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS), a system allowing NATO to survey wide surface areas from high altitude using hardware including unmanned drones, will be based on the southern Italian island of Sicily.

Approval for the project was granted under the condition that any increase in Germany's contribution would have to be approved by an appropriations committee, which will be informed of bids in an interim report, the official on the committee said under condition of anonymity.

The project, agreed by defence ministers in February, will cost 17 participating nations from the North Atlantic alliance around 1.5 billion euros in total.

The main beneficiary of the system would be Northrop Grumman, which would provide eight Global Hawk surveillance drones, a letter from the defence ministry showed this month.

European aerospace group EADS is to take a lead role in the development of 15 ground stations, the letter said.

(Reporting by Sabine Siebold, writing by Brian Rohan, editing by Mark Trevelyan)