The European Union (EU) could increase defense spending to 1 trillion euros by 2030. This estimate was made by the head of the leading German defense concern Rheinmetall, Armin Paperger.
In March, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed a plan to rearm the EU worth 800 billion euros. In an interview with the Handelsblatt newspaper, Paperger said that the group had carried out its own modeling of future military spending in the bloc. “The defense budget in Europe could even rise to 1 trillion USD by 2030”, the manager said. He did not specify whether he was referring to the regular military budget or the special program announced by von der Leyen. The regular defense budget of the EU countries in 2024 amounts to 326 billion EUR.
In any case, Rheinmetall will have the opportunity to increase investments in expanding production. As a result, the potential volume of orders for the concern will reach 300 billion EUR, while in 2024 the entire portfolio of current orders will amount to 55 billion EUR, which became a record for the company.
Production is already increasing - in particular, Rheinmetall increased the production of artillery shells to 750,000 per year and plans to double this figure. According to him, the concern is opening production of hulls and components not only in Germany, but also in other countries, such as Spain and Lithuania. There is interest in localizing production from Denmark, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland. "Everyone wants factories and we can build them," said Paperger.
Speaking of specific types of weapons, the head of the concern mentioned the Skyranger 30 short-range mobile air defense systems. According to him, Rheinmetall will produce more than a thousand of these vehicles over the next 10 years, 200-300 of which may enter service with the Bundeswehr. Paperger, without giving details, noted that an active process of coordination of future contracts covering various types of weapons is currently underway. "I promise that in 5 years Europe will have very different defense capabilities than those it has today," he said.