Defence markets and industries in Europe: time for political decisions?

The future of defence industries and markets is one of the most complex subjects on the agenda of European integration, as the on-going debate on the European Armaments Agency demonstrates. In this Chaillot Paper, Pierre De Vestel, a researcher at the Institute of European Studies of the Free University of Brussels, analyses the situation in the European defence industrial and technological base, develops various scenarios and makes some concrete proposals for a future European defence industrial policy.

The first draft of this paper, which has turned out significantly longer than many of our Chaillot Papers, was discussed at the first seminar to be jointly organised by the Institute with the European Commission, in Brussels on 6-7 April this year.