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2024 – Mark Akkerman and Chloé Maulewaeter
The report shows that the largest EU arms companies and major lobby organisations have had hundreds of meetings with the European Commission and Members of the European Parliament in the last decade. The European Commission has established a new Directorate-General for the Defence Industry and Space (DG DEFIS), which functions as a service provider for the arms industry.
One of the most important issues for arms companies is their access to private finance. The industry has been lobbying relentlessly against its exclusion in investors’ ESG policies and the proposed label of ‘socially unsustainable’ in the EU social taxonomy. While the military sector contributes significantly to GHG emissions and environmental damage, the industry seeks recognition of the relationship it claims exists between security and sustainability.
These lobby efforts and close ties with policy-makers bear fruit, with ongoing processes of allocating more money to arms production, introducing new support instruments and calls for the industry’s access to sustainable finance being made by all EU institutions and main European leaders.
Read the full report in English. Spanish version to come soon
Read the executive summary in English, French, German, Dutch
2022 – Mark Akkerman, Pere Brunet, Andrew Feinstein, Tony Fortin, Angela Hegarty, Niamh Ní Bhriain, Joaquín Rodriguez Alvarez, Laëtitia Sédou, Alix Smidman, Josephine Valeske
This report reveals how the EU’s first defence programmes worth almost €600 million are marred in conflicts of interest, corruption allegations, and fall significantly short of meeting the most basic ethical and legal standards when developing the next generation of weaponry which could radically change the way to conduct war. The same pattern is to be expected with the €8 billion-worth European Defence Fund for 2021-2027.
2021 – Ordered and funded by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Brussels Office.
Ainhoa Ruiz, Bram Vranken, Francesco Vignarca, Jordi Calvo, Laetitia Sédou, Wendela de Vries.
Although European governments claim not to export arms to countries at war or those violating human rights, European arms are sold all over the world with very few restrictions. European weapons are often exported to dictatorships or to countries at war. Groups from the European Network Against Arms Trade are discovering and exposing these deals.
2022 – This fact-sheet was drafted by researchers from Stop Wapenhandel and the Corruption Tracker project, and coordinated by the ENAAT EU project.
• What is the European Defence Fund? ENAAT fact-sheet (April 2019) in English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish
• ENAAT Position paper: MEPs must critically scrutinize EU funding to military Research & Development (12.12.2017) English
• Stop Wapenhandel factsheet European money for the arms industry (05.2017) English
• Factsheet 1: Why the Preparatory Action on Defence Research will not help improve European Defence Capabilities (13.10.2016) – English
• Factsheet 2: Why the Preparatory Action on Defence Research is a waste of EU public money and a form of subsidy to the arms industry (13.10.2016) – English
• Factsheet 3: Why the Preparatory Action on Defence Research is a blank cheque to the profit of national arms industry, not of EU interests (13.10.2016) – English
• Factsheet 4: Alternative spending to the PA on Defence Research can also save growth and jobs and better promote peace (13.10.2016) – English
• ENAAT Position paper on the PADR: Why the EU should not subsidize military research (30.08.3016) – English
• Reply EC Bienkowska to ENAAT letter (25.11.2016)
• ENAAT letter to Bienkowska on GoP (23.05.2016)
Campaign Against Arms Trade – Open? The UK’s secret arms sales
What is the total value of the UK arms trade? How much profit does the UK make selling weapons around the world each year to different countries? The UK government claims to have the most ‘rigorous and robust’ arms export controls in the world, but the truth is, it doesn’t record enough information on arms sales to answer even these basic questions. Published 2021.
CDRPC/Observatoire des armements – Contrôle des ventes d’armes: quel rôle pour les parlementaires?
Nouvelle étude comparative sur le contrôle parlementaire des exportations d’armes en Europe qui tente de répondre à cette question: instaurer davantage de transparence et de démocratie dans le domaine du contrôle des exportations d’armes a-t-il un impact sur les décisions de ventes d’armes? (in French. Published 2021)
