Thierry Breton, the European industry commissioner, will lay out proposals to encourage EU countries to buy more weapons together from European companies, and to help such firms increase production capacity, according to EU officials.
I’m more surprised that it needs to be initiated by a political action. I woukd expect the companies would adapt themselves omce they got such large weapons orders (I have not read the article, admitedly)
I was listening to a podcast the other day (could have been “Rachman review”, which is typically very good) and the interviewee said that yes, there might be interest in this, but companies want to see long-term orders before committing. There’s currently no capacity, so they have to build it on their side, but they don’t want to do it if they think the orders are going to dry in a few months / years.
A few orders aren’t enough for companies to invest in more capacity. They need assurances that their products will be bought for at least 10 years or so to even recoup the initial investment. Weapons factories are expensive and thus risky to build, but government guarantees can eliminate that risk.
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