Germany on Friday gave a cautious reaction to a Polish-Greek proposal for a new European air defence shield. The initiative had been noted, said government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann, while referring to an existing German project to strengthen Europe’s defence from aerial attack. Twenty-one countries are involved in the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI) devised after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and intended to close gaps in NATO’s defence shield for Europe. For example, there are plans to jointly place orders for air-defence technology with the defence industry. Ho…