European industry lagging behind the rest of the world

The observation is edifying. It says a lot about the difficulties of the European arms industry to produce more and faster, in a geopolitical context marked by the war in Ukraine, the conflict in Gaza and growing tensions in the China Sea. The combined sales of the 27 European groups ranked in the world's top 100 producers of military equipment have in fact increased by only 0.2%, to 133 billion dollars, in 2023 compared to 2022, according to the latest Stockholm report. Institute for Peace (Sipri), published this Monday. « The European arms industry lags behind the rest of the world in terms of revenue growth (…), with the lowest increase of any region in the world », underlines the report.

European industry benefits little from the increase in defense budgets in Europe. The latter have increased by 31% since 2021 and should represent, according to the European Defense Agency (EDA)…