Cooperation and non cooperation in European defence procurement

Abstract

The increasing cost of weapons, decreasing defence budgets and globalization of armaments supply-chain have made defence-industrial cooperation a priority in the European context. However, despite strong systemic incentives, European cooperation in defence-industrial activities remains very discontinuous. Why do European countries decide to cooperate with their partners in some instances and refrain from acting cooperatively in others? The present article introduces market size as a variable to elucidate different first and second-tier states’ approaches towards European defence-industrial cooperation. While firms settled in larger domestic markets lobby to maintain existing technological capabilities, firms in smaller domestic markets prefer to be competitive in limited sectors of the defence-industrial supply-chain in order to preserve export market niches. The article tests the plausibility of this argument by way of in-depth case studies of the French, German and Italian approaches towards two collaborative armaments projects: the Eurofighter and the A400M.