the missile manufacturer, MBDA, is working with the Ministry of the Armed Forces “to accelerate and increase rates”

With the war in Ukraine, the arms sector is facing large orders. To answer this, Éric Béranger, the general director of the missile manufacturer MBDA, explained Thursday on franceinfo that he had already doubled the pace of certain productions.

The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, will speak “on France’s support for Ukraine” in the 8 p.m. news on TF1 and France 2, Thursday March 14. And France and Ukraine signed a security agreement on February 16, which provides for increased military cooperation, particularly in the areas of artillery and air defense.

MBDA is a European defense company specializing in the manufacture of missiles. And today Ukraine accounts for a significant part of their orders. They published their financial results on March 13, with 10 billion euros in orders in 2023. This is twice as much as in 2021 before the launch of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.

To deal with these demands, Éric Béranger, the general director of MBDA, explained Thursday on franceinfo that the assembly site of their missiles is “doubling in size”which they did “stocks of electronic components and raw materials” and recruited “2,600 people” in 2023.

franceinfo: Where are your missiles found, in particular, in the Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense system?

Éric Béranger, general director of missile manufacturer MBDA : We see them in the Ukrainian air defense system, but not only that. I think your listeners have actually heard about the Aster missiles which are also used in the Red Sea to defend our frigates. I think they also heard about the Storm Shadow SCALPs that are there, deep attack missiles. And in fact, as you say, MBDA supplies our armed forces with all types of missiles: anti-aircraft defense, deep strikes, but also land combat, naval combat, air combat, and even for France, nuclear missiles for deterrent which are fired from aircraft.

Your order book has filled up enormously with the start of the war in Ukraine.

Absolutely. The world has completely changed on February 24, 2022. Many nations, particularly European nations, have taken into account the fact that, suddenly, force is increasingly defying international law. And so that leads nations to rearm. There are a lot of European nations in the backlog you mention. 50% of our orders are for export. And in this export, three-quarters (76%) of these orders come from European countries, outside of which we are established.

Where are you located?

We are in France, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom and Spain. MBDA in total, there are 15,000 people. That’s around 4.5 billion in turnover. And in all these countries, we have actually seen a big increase in power and requests from our customers to go faster, to produce more, because ultimately, time has become a very important constraint.

It is said that you do not produce fast enough and on several occasions the Minister of Defense, Sébastien Lecornu, has described you as a bad student. Did you pick up the pace? ?

We are actually accelerating. Since the Ukrainian events, MBDA is really getting into battle gear and I completely understand the impatience of our customers because I completely understand the need. There are subjects on which we have already managed to achieve very positive results, such as the Mistral that the minister mentioned, where we have already doubled our rates.

“We went from the beginning of 2022, from 10 missiles per month to today, 20 missiles per month and we intend to quadruple our Mistral production rate.”

Éric Béranger, general director of missile manufacturer MBDA

franceinfo

On the other hand, the Aster missiles, which are missiles that they really need at the moment in Ukraine, but not only that, are much more complicated missiles. A missile can make up to 10,000 components. We are currently working with the Ministry of the Armed Forces and with our various customers to accelerate and increase our rates.

What do you need to implement: buy more components, train people, recruit, stock up ?

Indeed, we are in the process of developing our industrial tool. So, if I look at France for example, the site where we assemble our missiles is doubling in size. And we do the same thing in all countries. We have stocked up and we continue to stock up on both electronic components and raw materials, a lot of steel. We use very special steels. We call them steel tones.

“On these steel grades, we have already made a stock of 80 tonnes, while each year, we use around four or five.”

Eric Beranger

franceinfo

This is to give you an idea of ​​the anticipation we are doing. We recruit a lot. Last year we recruited 2,600 people and this year we will recruit another 2,600 people. But we don’t just do that. There is also a lot of innovation in the ways of working internally and with the supply chain because it’s not just MBDA that needs to be taken along, it’s the entire supply chain behind it.

The defense sector is made up of a large number of SMEs. The European Commission wants that by 2030, 50% of military equipment ordered by member states will be supplied by European industry. Today, 70% comes from American purchases. Should we support this sector more actively? ?

I think it is really very important that the European Commission has displayed this ambition. And why is this production on European soil important, in any case this control on European soil, this sovereignty? I’ll give you a very simple example. I was talking to you about the SCALP Storm Shadow, missiles which were made for Rafales, for Eurofighters, English, Italian and German planes. And these missiles, if you want to put them under an aircraft for which they were not intended, it requires a lot of adaptation.

In a classic world like when we were in peacetime, this was something that could easily take two years. There, we were able to do it in a few weeks and why were we able to do it in a few weeks? Quite simply because not only did MBDA know about these missiles, but MBDA also had full legitimacy and, above all, full authority to decide how to adapt them to fit them under its planes.