Defense: EU lacks both an industrial base and military research capacity

Brussels – The Europe of states continues to spend more words than money on defense. Something is changing, thanks to a more uncertain global picture and a generalized perception of open war with Russia. Yet the EU and its member states continue to move slowly and in no particular order, as seen in the numbers on military research in an analysis by the European Parliament’s Think Tank. Comparing the EU with the US in defense innovation spending, it emerges that “the EU and its member states” together in 2023 allocated 14,4 billion euros for military research and development, which includes spending on research and technology (R&T), “a fraction of the 130 billion euros spent by the United States,” in the same year. 

In short, already from this single figure, for the experts of the European Parliament, “it becomes evident that the EU has a lot to catch up on,” and not only in terms of budget. There is a need for reorganization, which involves a more European approach to defense. Because for the EU, “the challenge is compounded by the fact that limited resources are dispersed across fragmented initiatives, with individual Member States pursuing separate priorities and acting largely in isolation.”

https://www.eunews.it/en/2025/02/13/eu-defense-industry-procurement-contracts/

“Coordinated defense” was what Mario Draghi called for when addressing European partners in his capacity as Prime Minister, even before drafting the White Paper on Defense. But the figure on military research and development also highlights a European structural problem: “Europe’s absence from the top 15 global technology companies further illustrates the continent’s lag in innovation,” the European Parliament’s analysis denounces. To get an idea of the extent of the problem, consider that in 2023, private investment in artificial intelligence in the United States amounted to EUR 62.5 billion, while the EU and the UK together attracted one-seventh of that, around EUR 9 billion.

There is then the issue, also a structural one, of a European defense that does not exist, and that still relies too heavily on the United States. In the years 2020-2024, and thus before but also after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the United States supplied 107 states with essential armaments, with exports to Europe more than tripling. It is not surprising, then, that in 2023 alone, the turnover of the EU-based defense industry is estimated at around EUR 120 billion, while the major US industrial groups – Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics – together had an overall turnover of the equivalent of EUR 170.3 billion (USD 198.16 billion). Five US companies invoice more than the entire EU, and the stars and stripes industrial base consists of 60,000 companies. This, too, is a number that helps understand the delays of an EU that is once again being called upon to reverse course.