Europe’s biggest missile maker plans to spend as much as €2.5 billion in the next five years to lift production and will go on a hiring spree as the region refocuses on supporting local arms providers amid increasingly fraught trans-Atlantic relations.
MBDA Missile Systems, a venture between France’s Airbus, BAE Systems from the UK and Leonardo of Italy, plans to bolster its workforce to 19,000 in 2025 by adding 2,600 employees, CEO Eric Beranger said at a press conference in Paris on Monday. The company boasts an order backlog of €37 billion after the intake reached an all-time high of €13.4 billion last year, he said.
Europe is in the process of rethinking its domestic defence capabilities as the US under President Donald Trump shows growing signs of wavering on decades of close strategic alliances. With the Russian-Ukrainian war now in its fourth year, more governments in Europe say they’re on their own to defend themselves against any future aggression coming from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has shown little inclination so far to give in to pressure from Washington and end the conflict.
“We have everything that we need in Europe,” said Beranger, touting his company as a model for closer European defence ties across different countries and companies.
European Union leaders will hold a summit this week to discuss the bloc’s rearmament plan. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has made proposals to mobilize as much as €800 billion in additional defence spending in response to Trump’s reversal of US security commitments in Europe.
The US still accounted for the majority of arms imports by European NATO states in the last four years, according to Sweden’s Sipri research institute, highlighting the region’s dependence on the world’s biggest arms exporter.
MBDA is also working on strengthening its supply chain operations, including with takeovers such as tactical propulsion company Roxel, Beranger said. The company is investing to guarantee it can swiftly fulfil orders, the CEO said.
See also: Weapons maker Patria urges Europe to coordinate on buying arms
While there have been some discussions about producing missiles in Ukraine, such a move would be too difficult to achieve for the time being, given the complexity of a process that would take years to enact, the CEO said.
“I have not identified a case where it would make sense to manufacture directly locally” in Ukraine, he said.
