“We see an unprecedented interest driven by the stark reality of the security landscape,” said Line Tresselt, partner and group director of defense and security at Rud Pedersen, a public affairs consultancy that has been advising the defense sector for two decades.
Traditionally, national governments are by far the largest military spenders — meaning it made sense to focus lobby efforts there.
At stake is an old-fashioned battle over money: European arms-makers want to ensure EU cash goes to local companies, while foreign contractors also want a slice of the pie.
“It’s more than a response to the full-scale invasion in Ukraine: with EDIP [the €1.5 billion European Defence Industry Programme], but also the European Defense Fund, the upcoming EU defense white paper, the newly appointed defense commissioner, coupled with NATO’s evolving posture … there’s a massive increase of EU-made policies for the sector,” said Tresselt.
Everyone wants a piece
The top 10 EU defense firms — Airbus, Leonardo, Thales, Rheinmetall, Naval, Saab, Safran, KNDS Deutschland, Dassault and Fincantieri — have to declare their lobbying efforts in the EU Transparency Register when they lobby in member countries. Archives from the NGO-driven database LobbyFacts also allow a comparison with previous entries from early 2022 and early 2023.
In 2022, cumulative spending for the top 10 ranged between €3.95 million and €5.1 million; by 2023, that figure had risen to between €5.5 million and €6.7 million. Working off the lower ends of the brackets, that would equate to a 40 percent increase in just one year.
