The head of European missile maker MBDA said on Monday that efforts to steer more defence spending towards European suppliers faced political hurdles, with EU governments still divided over how much to rely on US security guarantees.
Washington has been pressing European NATO allies to increase defence spending, while France has led calls to buy more European-made weapons amid questions over the US commitment to Europe’s security.
“Do we want as Europeans to really take our own fate in our hands and then bring our European capabilities to the NATO alliance, or are we simply increasing our capabilities by buying outside?” MBDA CEO Eric Beranger asked the Warsaw Security Forum.
“There are some different attitudes between the various governments. I think the jury is still out,” Beranger said, adding: “There is still some way to go”.
Beranger, who steps down next month, was among several speakers debating European strategic autonomy at the forum, which is taking place amid heightened tensions over the war in Ukraine.
Several European countries, including conference host Poland, Germany and the Netherlands, have turned to US suppliers for equipment such as F-35 fighter jets.
“Limiting American defence industry in European procurement programmes threatens that partnership and weakens our mutual security”, the US mission to the European Union said in February.
Nuclear deterrence was also a focus of the discussion, with Russia recently renewing warnings that it could use nuclear weapons to defend itself.
“Of all the events at this conference that the Russians will be most interested in hearing … it will be this one”, former British defence minister Ben Wallace said, referring to Europe’s ability to strengthen its nuclear and conventional deterrence.
“Deterrence is not only capabilities; deterrence is also perceptions.
Do we believe our American allies will come? Does Russia believe our American allies will come?” said Claudia Major, senior vice president for transatlantic security at the German Marshall Fund.
“I don’t say give up on the US. I just say don’t blind ourselves”, Major added, citing recent friction with the US over Greenland, Russia and Ukraine.
NATO members, including the US, reaffirmed their commitment to collective defence in the Ankara Summit Declaration in July, repeating that “an attack on one is an attack on all”.
Stressing that credibility is central to deterrence, Beranger said Europe already had the industrial base it needed to strengthen its defences.
