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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 in the pockets of arms giants Leonardo, Thales and Airbus. In this way, the EDF predominantly functions as a funding vehicle to strengthen the dominant position of these and other large arms companies as Saab, Dassault Aviation and Safran in the EU military-industrial complex.
ASAP funding went to a total of 27 different beneficiaries. Europe’s most prominent ammunition manufacturer, Rheinmetall, receives the bulk of the funding, over 20% of the total. Eurenco, NAMMO and Chemring Nobel are the other key players here, each getting over 10%.
The division of the funding per country (EU member state) shows a similar unequal picture. Almost two-third of the EDF money goes to France, Italy, Germany or Spain. All other countries have significantly lower shares, not exceeding 5% of the total.
And for ASAP almost 60% of the funding flows to the home countries of the main beneficiaries: Germany, Norway and France.
Every year the EU member states export tens of billions of euros worth of arms, including to many destinations outside the EU. The countries that benefit most from the EDF are also the major EU arms exporters. The lists of main non-EU-destinations for their arms exports show a range of controversial destinations.
This infographic only includes transfers of major arms to the countries concerned. Apart from these, other military exports and cooperation projects might intensify the picture. Thales, for example, has exported electronic components and communication systems for drones to Israel and has a decades-long continuing relation with the regime of Saudi Arabia.
EU arms exports by these companies and other EDF beneficiaries, contribute to war, violence, repression and human rights abuses across the globe. European arms are or have been used in the genocide in Gaza and the devastating wars in Yemen and Sudan and have strengthened authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Turkey and many other countries. Sometimes this is the result of direct exports, other times arms supplies have been diverted or resold by the original destination country. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), an important client of the EU arms industry, is the major provider of arms for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), one of the parties in the civil war in Sudan, including the re-export of EU arms. In general, the UAE is a major exporter of arms to states at risk, as are other steady clients of the EU arms industry as Israel and Ukraine. European military support to Ukraine in the war against the Russian invasion has brought its arms industry closer to the EU and fuelled increasing cooperation between them, without Ukraine being bound by the export criteria of the EU Common Position.
The European Defence Fund was based on a report by a so-called Group of Personalities, an official advisory group established by the European Commission. The group was dominated by representatives of arms companies, research institutes or lobby organisations. Many of them are among the largest beneficiaries of the first three years of EDF funding, including top earners Leonardo, Airbus, Indra and Saab. This influential position is exemplary for the increasingly closer ties between Commission, MEPs and industry, which is also reflected in the many meetings between them. Recent years have seen arms companies significantly boost their lobby efforts towards the EU, with Airbus being the company with the most meetings with the European Commission.
As the European Commission has no competence in the field of ‘defence’, it has based all EU funding for the arms industry on its capacity to act in the areas of internal market and industrial competitiveness, not only the EDF but also ASAP and similar programmes.
Enhancing the global competitiveness of the European arms industry has been included among the criteria for awarding grants from the EU Defence Fund – in other words, the ability of arms dealers to sell abroad. And a recent revision of the EDF regulation has made this criterion sufficient in itself to justify a project, namely its ability to create “new market opportunities” and accelerate growth and competitiveness of the sector.
The ASAP programme was justified by the need to supply ammunition to Ukraine; yet the main arms suppliers and their governments rejected a provision that might have obliged them to give priority to Ukraine or EU countries in a crisis situation, as they did not want to jeopardise their credibility with their export customers. In other words, deliveries to Saudi Arabia or Israel could take precedence over potential demand in Europe.
To complete the picture, as part of the recently adopted European Defence Industrial Programme (EDIP), which is designed to subsidise military production and joint procurement, the EU Commission is attempting to establish a European Military Sales mechanism largely inspired by the US ‘Foreign Military Sales’ and makes no reference to human rights, international law or arms export control standards.
And the so-called ‘simplification package’ presented in June 2025 to facilitate the production and trade of arms includes measures which, if adopted, will deprive many Member States of their ability to effectively control the final destination of a large proportion of their military production – in particular components, technologies and software – to the benefit of the major final assembly countries.