Airbus

Four arms companies have submitted proposals to the Swiss government, bidding to be the manufacturer of the countries new fleet of war planes to replace the again F-5 and F/A-18 fleet.

In late April the German government’s Defence Minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, proposed the purchase 93 Eurofighters made by Airbus and 45 F-18s built by the US-based company Boeing, to replace its Tornado bomber-fighter fleet.

For five years, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia has been at war in Yemen. Huge volumes of weapons have been shipped from arms companies in Europe and elsewhere, from a large number of arms companies. Find out how you can take action on the website of the European Network Against the Arms Trade, and more details about some of the companies who have supplied Saudi Arabia below.

As hundreds of arms dealers prepared to gather for the annual European Defence Agency conference, hundreds of posters appeared throughout the European quarter in Brussels protesting the arms industry and its CEOs’ complicity in arming dictatorial regimes and in the militarisation of European borders.

A new report published by one of WRI's affiliates in Belgium – Vredesactie – expolores the full extent of European arms exports to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

On 10th April, members of the Amsterdam-based group “Stop the War on Migrants” took action during the annual shareholder meeting of Airbus.

A new report from the Transnational Institute exposes the huge impact of the European Union's “border externalisation” policies, the companies that profit, and the huge numbers of people impacted. Expanding the Fortress explores how migration control has become a major part of the EU's foreign relations, with externalisation policies requiring neighbours to “act as Europe's border guards”.

In the course of this year Frontex, the EU border guard agency, will test two military UAVs (drones) for maritime border surveillance in the Mediterranean Sea: the Heron from Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) and the Falco from Italian arms giant Leonardo (formerly Finmeccanica).

German prosecutors have fined the arms company Airbus €81.25 million in order to settle an investigation into corruption allegations.