The European Defence Agency on Tuesday adopted a scheme for EU nations to share and coordinate their investments in new arms testing and evaluation.
The new code of conduct is designed "to avoid duplication and encourage the sharing of these expensive facilities" in Europe, the EDA said in a statement.
The agency's outgoing chief executive Nick Witney gave as examples joint use of expensive wind tunnels for aerodynamic testing and research tanks for submarines.
Under the code of conduct, which will come into effect in January, EU nations will inform each other on a voluntary basis of planned defence testing investment worth more than one million euros (1.4 million dollars).
Such exchanges of information will enable the EU states to invest in a coordinated manner in new testing installations as they will be able to use facilities already existing in a fellow EU member.
Some 40,000 people are currently employed in the sector, said Witney's deputy Hilmar Hillekamp.
Necessary precautions would be put in place to ensure that results of test programmes carried out by one country in another are not the subject to spying, he added.
The British EDA chief executive Witney was taking part in his last meeting of the agency's governing body before handing over to German Alexander Weis next month.
The EDA, created in 2004, brings together the national armaments directors from 26 of the 27 EU nations (Denmark is not involved).
