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01 May 25. European Defence Fund funnels money to drones, hypersonic defense, AI. The European Union’s executive arm picked 62 defense projects for a combined €910m ($1bn) in financing in the latest funding round by the European Defence Fund, focusing on areas including drones, autonomous mine sweeping and defense against hypersonic weapons.
Flagship projects in the funding round include Eurosweep, which aims to develop an unmanned minesweeping system, ENGRT II to develop a next-generation rotorcraft, and the iMUGS2 project to test unmanned ground vehicles, the European Commission said on Wednesday.
“This is a major step to close critical defense capability gaps and reinforce Europe’s strategic autonomy,” European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius said in a post on social media. The latest EDF funding allocation “supports both advanced R&D and real-world defense capabilities,” he said.
The fund started operating in 2021 to support collaborative defense research and development in Europe, and the latest round means the EDF has now allocated half of its budget of nearly €8bn through to 2027. The commission picked the most recent winners from a record 297 proposals received in response to the EDF 2024 call for proposals.
Ukraine’s defense industry was able to participate in EDF projects for the first time, which “deepens our cooperation and helps integrate Ukraine into the European defense industrial base,” Kubilius said.
The EDF provides significant funding, and its budget for the 2021-2027 period accounts for around 15% of all EU defense R&D spending, with only France and Germany spending more, the International Institute for Strategic Studies wrote in an October report.
Small and medium-sized companies accounted for 27% of total funding in the 2024 call, according to the commission. That’s the highest yet, after three rounds in which SMEs accounted for between 18% and 20% of funding.
Among specific projects, European Next Generation Rotorcraft Technologies Phase II or ENGRT II received €100m in EU funding on an estimated total cost of €160m. The project is led by Airbus Helicopters at the head of a consortium of more than 40 companies and institutes.
The iMUGS2 project, coordinated by Milrem, received €50m for field testing and a trial of unmanned ground systems, with the project seeking to develop system architectures to allow new and legacy military vehicles to integrate autonomous and swarming capabilities.
Milrem was founded in Estonia and now belongs to EDGE Group, a state-owned technology conglomerate of the United Arab Emirates.
Eurosweep led by Norway’s Forsvarets Forskningsinstitutt was awarded €28.5m to develop a naval minesweeping system with autonomous features.
The EDF also provided €78m in financing for a classified project that aims to counter hypersonic glide vehicles.
Funding included €35m for Scepter, a research program to develop interoperable and standardized radar, electronic warfare and communication systems for airborne platforms, coordinated by Spain’s Indra Sistemas. The Boosting European Advanced Missile System Technologies project, or Beast, aims to develop a future short-range, air-to-air missile under the lead of Diehl Defence, and received €34.9m. A project to upgrade European cyber defense led by the Estonian Ministry of Defence’s CR14 and called Citadel Range was allocated €48m in funding.
A concept study for a new mid-sized European military transport aircraft with a 20-ton payload, led by Airbus within the Fasett2 project, received €30 m in funding. A Rheinmetall-led project to develop non-jammable precision munition called Ninja2 received €29.6m.
The EDF also funded five smaller projects working on resilient drone navigation or swarming capability in non-permissive environments, and four projects to apply artificial intelligence for satellite-image analysis, including for the detection and monitoring of military activities. (Source: Defense News)
30 Apr 25. Turkey and Greece expand military confidence-building measures. Turkey and Greece have concluded a fresh round of talks in Thessaloniki, Greece, as part of the 2025 implementation of bilateral military confidence-building measures (CBMs), aiming to ease longstanding tensions between the two NATO members. The delegations – comprising senior diplomats, military officers, and defense officials – reviewed ongoing CBMs agreed in previous years and discussed a roadmap for 2026.
These include military-to-military contacts, direct communication lines between defense and foreign ministers, joint disaster response exercises, language training exchanges, and environmental cooperation along the Meriç (Evros) River. Despite both countries being NATO members, Turkey and Greece have clashed repeatedly over maritime boundaries, airspace violations, energy exploration rights in the Eastern Mediterranean, and sovereignty claims in the Aegean. Periodic crises have brought the two nations to the brink of military confrontation, most recently in 2020. This week’s talks, held on April 28 and 29, were described by both sides as constructive, with the next meeting scheduled to take place in Turkey. (Source: Defense News)
28 Apr 25. Germany surges to fourth largest global military spender: SIPRI. Europe has entered a period of high and increasing military spending, “which is likely to continue for the foreseeable future,” Lorenzo Scarazzato, a researcher at SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Productions Program, told Breaking Defense. Berlin’s military expenditures soared to $88.5bn in 2024, positioning it as the world’s fourth-largest military spender and the highest in Central and Western Europe for the first time since Germany’s reunification in 1990.
Germany is now spending 1.9 percent of the country’s GDP, approaching NATO’s current target of 2 percent. This represents a 28 percent increase from 2023 and an 89 percent rise since 2015, according to a new Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report. The US remains the world’s largest defense spender, outlaying $997bn last year, a 5.7 percent annual increase. China took second place, with an estimated $314bn, a 7 percent increase over the same period. Russia, in third, spent an estimated $149bn, a 38 percent increase over the previous year. But the big story may be Germany’s sudden surge, which was fueled by a €100bn ($105bn) extra-budgetary fund established in 2022, which continued to bolster Germany’s defense capabilities in 2024. The German parliament greenlit significant arms procurement and military research initiatives, partly financed by this fund, enhancing the nation’s defense infrastructure.
Among the most noteworthy procurement contracts in 2024 are Leopard 2 A8 main battle tanks, additional U-212CD submarines, Patriot PAC-3 missile defense systems, and 155-millimeter artillery ammunition.
A record number of 97 major procurement and development projects were approved by the Bundestag’s budget committee in 2024, where “most of the funding came from the, now exhausted, €100bn special fund,” Lorenzo Scarazzato, a researcher at SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Productions Program, told Breaking Defense.
Germany also provided $7.7bn in military aid to Ukraine in 2024, making it the second largest donor to Ukraine’s defense efforts, trailing only the United States’ $48.4bn in financial aid, equipment and training support to Ukraine. This underscores Germany’s growing role in global security and its commitment to supporting allies amid ongoing geopolitical tensions.
The latest adopted guidelines in Germany and several other European countries indicate that Europe has entered a period of high and increasing military spending, “which is likely to continue for the foreseeable future,” Scarazzato said.
Germany’s eastern neighbor, Poland, which lies closer to the borders of Russia and Ukraine, saw its military spending rise by 31 percent in 2024 to $38.0bn, representing 4.2 percent of GDP — the highest defense burden in Central and Western Europe and slightly above the 4 percent target set by the government in 2023. In the year Sweden formally joined NATO, its military expenditure surged by 34 percent to $12bn, reaching 2 percent of GDP and aligning with the alliance’s defense spending target. The increase reflects a dramatic escalation over the last decade, with Sweden’s military budget more than doubling over the decade from 2015 to 2024, according to SIPRI’s data. At the same time, Sweden’s Scandinavian neighbors exceeded NATO’s 2024 target of 2 percent of GDP for military spending: Denmark reached 2.4 percent, followed by Finland at 2.3 percent and Norway at 2.1 percent. (Source: Breaking Defense.com)
25 Apr 25. Estonia approves $3.2bn defense spending spike, locks in 5.4 percent GDP target. “The government’s decision means that we are progressing faster than before in building up Estonia’s defence capabilities – that applies to the army, the air force, as well as the navy,” said Estonia’s Prime Minister Kristen Michal. In a bid to meet NATO capability targets, Estonia has approved a four-year defense investment plan, complete with additional funding of €2.8bn ($3.2bn). Announced on Thursday, ratification of the “supplementary defence investment programme” enables Tallinn to allocate 5.4 percent GDP, on average, toward military budgeting out to 2029.
“The government’s decision means that we are progressing faster than before in building up Estonia’s defence capabilities — that applies to the army, the air force, as well as the navy,” said Estonia’s Prime Minister Kristen Michal in a statement.
He added that the new funding marks “the largest increase in defence spending in recent history, which will allow us to develop Estonia’s air defence faster, increase the army’s firepower, create a deep-warfare capability, and place significant emphasis on the development of drone and electronic warfare.”
Further development of national defense capabilities “will be guided” by advice from Maj. Gen. Andrus Merilo, commander of Estonia’s Defence Forces, and is aligned to both “experiences” from the Ukraine war and NATO capability targets, according to the statement.
The alliance is in the process of refreshing capability targets that are designed to support better standards of readiness, interoperability and coordination across member nations on items like air and missile defense systems. Further details, however, are not available as a NATO spokesperson told Breaking Defense today that the targets “are classified, so will not be published.”
Pierre Vandier, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, said in March that member nations will be asked to increase their individual capability targets by 30 percent, and 80 percent of allies had already accepted the proposed push, per Defense News, with agreement from all 32 countries planned ahead of the forthcoming NATO Summit, in the Hague.
Estonia’s decision to increase defense spending follows a similar move by Baltic state counterpart Lithuania. As Breaking Defense previously reported, Vilnius committed in January to invest between 5 to 6 percent GDP on its armed forces out to the end of the decade. Rounding off the regional fiscal push, Latvia plans on increasing its military spending to 5 percent GDP, long term, according to a local media report. The Trump administration has urged European nations to reach such a figure, though a more modest target is expected to be agreed at the NATO summit.
Major procurements tied to Estonian modernization efforts include a $200m-plus package for six Lockheed Martin-made M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). Tallinn is mulling a second tranche order, but issues relating to delivery lead times and pricing have led to evaluation of rival competitor weapon systems. In February Hanno Pevkur, Estonia’s defense minister, also told Breaking Defense that there is “still some time” to decide on a XA-180 armored personnel carrier replacement acquisition.
In March, Tallinn received deliveries of close to 50 Turkish-made Arma 6×6 armored personnel carriers and 4×4 NMS armored vehicles, set to enter service with infantry and combat support units. A first batch, from 12 French produced Caesar MK1 155mm caliber self-propelled howitzers on order, were also received in January.
New air warfare capabilities are being prioritized too. The Estonian Centre for Defence Investments (ECDI) announced a tender in support of a seven-year loitering munitions framework agreement in December 2024, aimed at covering “needs for various short- and long-range systems,” according to a statement. Tallinn is focused on securing several “providers” for the effort. (Source: Breaking Defense.com)
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Founded in 1987, Exensor Technology is a world leading supplier of Networked Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS) Systems providing tailored sensor solutions to customers all over the world. From our Headquarters in Lund Sweden, our centre of expertise in Network Communications at Communications Research Lab in Kalmar Sweden and our Production site outside of Basingstoke UK, we design, develop and produce latest state of the art rugged UGS solutions at the highest quality to meet the most stringent demands of our customers. Our systems are in operation and used in a wide number of Military as well as Homeland Security applications worldwide. The modular nature of the system ensures any external sensor can be integrated, providing the user with a fully meshed “silent” network capable of self-healing. Exensor Technology will continue to lead the field in UGS technology, provide our customers with excellent customer service and a bespoke package able to meet every need.
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