The defence ministers from Germany and France both declared that the European Union has absolutely no role to play in weapons export decisions, issuing a clear rebuke to European Commission ambitions to ease trade within the EU weapons market.
Headline and quote don’t focus on the key issue:
The EU executive has proposed allowing countries to skip obtaining approval before reselling key sensitive components used in weapons manufacturing.
The EU wants to loosen arms control and there doesn’t seem to be a replacement for what the states do. At best that’s just recklessness.
Of course states don’t want to lose that control, even if the EU would track components itself. But that should be cause for questioning in general if the EU should continue centralizing power in Brussels.
France. When Macron has been pushing the idea of a stronger common EU defense for years. Sheesh.
“We need change! But please don’t change how we did things for decades!”
This is how the world will end.
Somebody said it’s because Hungary but I don’t buy it.
Unsurprisingly Germany and France are also the largest arms manufacturers in the EU. The article is short but I’d like more background.
The remarks demonstrate strong and united opposition from the EU’s two most important members to the Commission’s push to loosen export controls within the EU in order to fast-track arms production. The EU executive has proposed allowing countries to skip obtaining approval before reselling key sensitive components used in weapons manufacturing.
EU envoys reach deal on 150 billion euro arms fund
SAFE fund aims to boost EU defence industry
Defense policy, including arms export policy, may not be an EU competency (or in US parlance, defense in the EU is a state power rather than a confederal power). So, as of 2025, Brussels may not be able to say something like “EU members need to be willing to permit transfers of weapons to other EU members” or anything like that.
But if the EU is going to be funding substantial defense purchases moving forward, it’s not just acting as a defense producer, but as a defense customer. And in that role as a large customer who can potentially place conditions on its purchases, it may well have influence over arms producers.
Why do they want to veto arms exports to within the EU?
Hungary…
That’s fair, honestly. Fuck Orban and everyone voting for him.
