Is the arms race relaunched in Europe?

500 million euros over two years to replenish stocks diminished by support for Ukraine – ammunition, light and heavy artillery, anti-aircraft defense systems, etc. Each Member State will retain total freedom to decide on its purchases. This is a specific budget which will be added to the already existing European Defense Fund, endowed with eight billion euros, but which focuses solely on research and development. The two are complementary: on the one hand the sums released for the purchase of armaments, on the other the structure to finance research on the weapons of the future.

As part of this European Defense Fund, Brussels has launched several calls for projects and the results have just been released and are positive for France. Our manufacturers have been pre-selected on projects 178 times, compared to 156 for the Italians and 113 for the Germans. There are of course large groups such as Safran and Thales, but also many SMEs. At the end of the selection process, 61 projects will be selected and will benefit from European funding of up to 1.2 billion euros, mainly in disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence and new materials.

The European Commissioner, Thierry Breton, often insists on the fact that Europe has been disarmed for twenty years compared to all the continents. Compared to the United States, Russia, India or China, Europe is the only one to have lowered its investments. During the Treaty of Lisbon which entered into force in 2009, the Member States undertook to devote 2% of their national wealth (GDP) to their defense budget. We are in 2022… France is at 1.9%; Italy at 1.5 and Germany at 1.44%.

Cumulatively for all European countries, the deficit in relation to this 2% objective now amounts to 1,300 billion euros. It is this delay that Brussels intends to gradually make up for, at a time when global geopolitical tensions are picking up again.