Media coverage of the European Defence and Security Summit

The European Defence and Security Summit, co-organised by ASD was well covered by media across Europe.

Reuters covered Ursula von der Leyen’s speech at the Summit on 17 April, noting that President von der Leyen said the EU needed to turbo-charge defence-industrial capacity in the next five years amid rising global threats. "We will focus on innovation to ensure Europe has that edge in the new technologies, which we see being deployed across the world in different conflicts."

Politico ran two stories on the Summit, the first highlighting how Ursula von der Leyen’s speech said that on defence “European sovereignty will never be at the expense of our allies and friends and never affect the importance and the need for NATO”.

And in an interview with ASD Board Vice Chairman and CEO of Saab Micael Johansson, Politico looked at the supply chain bottlenecks affecting the manufacturing of ammunition for Ukraine.

An article in Science Business by Martin Greenacre discussed the Summit in the context of the EU’s newly announced European Defence Industrial Strategy. The article also quotes ASD Board Vice Chairman and CEO of Saab Micael Johansson: “We can’t spend money on R&D, collaborating through the European Defence Fund (EDF), which is good, but then when we get to industrialisation and production, spend lots of money outside the EU”.

ASD Secretary General, Jan Pie is also quoted on the issue of access to finance, saying “industry has stretched as far as it can when it comes to taking risks … “I have heard so many prime ministers say that investing in defence is sustainable … Still, there are tons of eco-labels out there across member states that put defence in the same category as tobacco and alcohol.”

Table.Media covered Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s keynote speech at the Summit, and her call for the EU to work “quickly and decisively on its security architecture”.

Defence Industry Europe focused its coverage on the speech by Estonian Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas in which she stressed the urgency for Europe to respond to the threat posed by Russia. Kallas is quoted in the article saying that the next long-term budget of the European Union can do a lot to improve the situation if a higher share of it is devoted to defence. “The current level, a meagre 0.86%, is simply not enough. The new security reality is here to stay, and our actions must correspond,”