Tomorrow the European Summit will welcome the launch of the Permanent Structured cooperation (PESCO) and review ‘progress’ in other areas of Defence, and the European Parliament will discuss the EC proposal to fund the development phase of new military capabilities with the EU budget, as part of the European Defence Fund.
The European Network Against Arms Trade calls for a proper public debate to happen and for the voices of concerned citizens and peace groups to be taken seriously. It has published an online information tool proposing a critical analysis of the European Defence Fund.
It is targeted at citizens, activists, journalists and decision-makers alike; it aims to support them in making informed opinions,
analysis and decisions.
OSDE 2026
2 June 2026
Major Beneficiaries of EDF and ASAP. Companies European Defence Fund (EDF) After the first three years of the EDF, about a thousand different entities (companies, research institutes, universities, government agencies and a few CSOs) have received funding. It is clear that a large portion of the money goes to a small set of large arms companies. This is exacerbated by the fact that many of these companies own (parts) of other beneficiaries, in the form of takeovers, joint ventures, subsidiaries or major shareholder ownership. With this in mind, almost a quarter of the funding ends up