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The influence of the arms lobby in Brussels

In contrast to the regulation of the economy or the protection of the environment, security policy in the European Union is not communitized. Therefore, all decisions must be approved by the governments of the 27 member states - and they are often based on their respective national interests. As a result, Europe's common defense policy often remains in a dangerous gray area. And that has an impact: For example, we were able to prove that representatives of arms companies wrote entire paragraphs of the Commission proposal for the billion-dollar European Defense Fund, which supports research and development in this area.

The arms lobby in Brussels is very strong – and many national governments do not want any parliamentary control of the funds. Under pressure from some governments, the European Parliament (against the votes of the Greens, among others) even disempowered itself and waived its control rights regarding the fund. I spoke to "Investigate Europe", a European team of journalists, about the topic. The Tagesspiegel (German newspaper) is one of the media partners of the team and has reported on their research.

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