BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
\nNATO leaders meeting in The Hague this month look set to agree to a major increase in military budgets under pressure from US President Donald Trump. But as Europe promises to ramp up defence spending and wean itself from reliance on the United States, a key question looms: can it produce enough weapons?
\n\u201cThis is really keeping me up at night, making sure that we not only ramp up spending, but also ramp up defence industrial production,\u201d NATO chief Mark Rutte said Thursday.
\nMore than three years into Moscow\u2019s war on Ukraine, NATO says Russia\u2019s weapons production far outstrips the West\u2019s and has warned that the Kremlin could be ready to attack the alliance within five years. The demands on NATO\u2019s European members are huge: new hardware targets agreed this month will require the biggest armament spree in decades.
\nRutte has pushed for a commitment to bolster defence spending to 3.5 percent of GDP within seven years, plus 1.5 percent on security-related areas such as infrastructure.
\nThat would likely work out as hundreds of billions of extra euros a year. While countries seem largely on board, German defence minister Boris Pistorius last week pointed to one challenge \u201cnobody really discusses\u201d.
\n\u201cIt is about how much money is really able to be spent… if industry is not able to deliver what we ordered,\u201d he told his NATO colleagues.The push to bolster output will be prominent in The Hague with NATO hosting an industry forum alongside the summit. After years of underinvestment following the Cold War, the European Union has unveiled a raft of initiatives since Moscow\u2019s 2022 invasion.
\nNational budgets have increased and Brussels has sought to plug the funding gap with plans that could mobilise a further 800 billion euros ($924 billion).
\nA major focus is making sure most of that money is spent buying weapons in Europe so the continent can stand more on its own two feet. But persistent gripes remain: businesses lack long-term orders, capacity is too low, costs are too high, production times too long and the industry too fragmented.
\n\u201cTo some extent, the budgetary debates and the spending debates are behind us. The question is, how do you translate all of that funding into actual capabilities?\u201d Hugues Lavandier, head of aerospace and defence for Europe at McKinsey, told a Brussels conference. Waiting times for new weaponry can stretch for years, and for some key equipment such as longer-range missiles, Europe still relies on the United States.
\nBut proponents say the continent has the potential to meet demand \u2014 provided governments and defence firms get a move on.\u201dOur assessment is that we can produce 95 plus percent of whatever we need to credibly deter and be ready,\u201d said Francois Arbault, a top official overseeing the defence industry at the European Commission.
\n\u201cBut we need the orders and we need that manufacturing power to be actually materialised in additional investment, because you need to ramp up.\u201d
\nIndustry leaders say orders are picking up, if not as fast or for as long a period as hoped, and insist businesses are already putting money into expanding.
\nThe CEO of Swedish defence giant Saab, Micael Johansson, told AFP his firm increased its workforce by 6,000 people and quadrupled ammunition in recent years.
\n\u201cAbsolutely, we can do more \u2014 and fortunately, many of us have invested at risk to increase capacity,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re getting the signals that demand will be high, but I can\u2019t say that I know exactly what target levels we\u2019re aiming for.\u201d One fear officials have is that a sudden splurge in spending could lead to price hikes.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s a real risk that we get, you know, less bang for our buck because of inflation,\u201d said Matthew Whitaker, the US ambassador to NATO. \u201cWe need to make sure that it\u2019s incremental, that it\u2019s measured, but that it\u2019s sustained.
\n\u201cTo help smooth out barriers blocking investment, the EU is set to unveil a push to strip away red tape next week. \u201cIt cannot be that the defence industry needs to wait five years to have a permit to build a new factory,\u201d EU defence commissioner Andrius Kubilius said.
\n\u201c(Russian leader Vladimir) Putin will not wait for us to get our paperwork in order. \u201cOne way to bolster Europe\u2019s capacity long-term could be turning to battle-hardened Ukraine.
\nAs Russia\u2019s war has raged on, Ukrainian firms have become experts at cost-cutting and the country is now a leader in drone technology.\u201dThe Ukrainian industry is very important,\u201d said Guntram Wolff at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels. \u201cThe products that they produce are actually low cost and very effective.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM NATO leaders meeting in The Hague this month look set to agree to a major increase in military budgets under pressure from US President Donald Trump. But as Europe promises to ramp up defence spending and wean itself from reliance on the United States, a key question looms: can it produce enough weapons? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-484067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n