ARD: high demand for defence equipment poses challenges for industry

He underlined that increased defence spending in Europe did not result in orders for the European defence industry as many would expect:

“Almost 80 percent of military spending in the past two years went to American companies and Israel. The higher budgets in recent years largely did not benefit European industry.”

With a view to the ramp-up of defence production facilities, Burkhard Schmitt emphasised that industry needs long-term predictability and reliability from its public customers:

“Making the mentality change takes time, this applies to an authority as well as to the industry. In this respect, there is a contradiction between what you hear and what actually happens. The defence industry only has one customer and that is the public sector. If they don’t order, nothing will be produced.”

Read the full article (original in German).