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Post-Cold War Trends in the European Defence Industry: Implications for Transatlantic Industrial Relations

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 18; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14782801003638745

1478-2804

Hugo Meijer,

Defense, Military, and Policy Studies

Abstract Since the end of the Cold War, Europe's defence industry continues to consolidate, and this process has resulted in significant restructuring across European borders. Having examined the post-Cold War changing economic and technological conditions in the armaments market, the article investigates how the interplay between the defence industries' strategies in facing this new environment and the EU initiatives in the security realm has transformed Europe's defence industrial base. The implications of these changes for transatlantic industrial relations are then analysed in the space sector. It is argued that the political economy of the transatlantic relationship has experienced a shift of relative market power away from the US towards Europe. Keywords: defence industryEuropean security and defence policyspaceeconomic integrationtransatlantic market Notes 1 See Concentration in the Arms Industry, Stockholm Institute for International Peace, available online at: http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/production/researchissues/concentration_aprod. 2 BAE Systems and EADS, for instance, have adopted different strategies of consolidation. BAE Systems is the result of the consolidation of much of the UK's national defence infrastructure into one company, without any major cross-border ties. EADS, on the other hand, was formed via a transnational 'merger of mergers' within similar sectors by the 'national champions' of individual countries (Callum & Guay, Citation2002). 3 Available online at: http://www.sipri.org/contents/expcon/loisign.html. 4 Available online at: http://www.sipri.org/contents/expcon/loisign.html. 5 For further details, see Appendices A and B. 6 The so-called 'Wise Men's Groups' was a committee set up to examine the organization of the public space sector in Europe and the role of ESA in that sector. Its members were: Carl Bildt, former Swedish prime minister and UN envoy to the Balkans; Jean Peyrelevade, president of Credit Lyonnais; and Lothar Späth, CEO of Jenoptik and former prime minister of the State Baden-Wurttemberg. 7 EC, ESA, EDA, Workshop on Critical Space Technologies for European Strategic Non-Dependence, Brussels, 9 September 2008, available online at: http://www.eda.europa.eu/genericitem.aspx?id = 413. 8 http://www.defence-data.com. 9 In 2002, BAE Systems agreed to sell its 25 per cent stake in the Astrium satellite joint venture to EADS.