![\"Nowe](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/XWKxEmBFIWPGvm96PdqpR7yyx4mZ83TRdM1aSVPo.8j5q.jpg\")
\n New production lines at Mesko plants
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Photo. Jakub Borowski, Defence24.pl<\/p>\n
\n New production lines at Mesko plants
\n
Photo. Jakub Borowski, Defence24.pl<\/p>\n
Recent months have brought a significant shift in European ammunition production. How much have investments in this key issue for collective security accelerated?<\/p>\n
\u201cSince February 2022, Europe\u2019s annual ammunition production capacity has increased from 300,000 to around two million rounds per year,\u201d said EU Commissioner for Defence Andrius Kubilius in an interview with theFinancial Times. The Lithuanian politician\u2019s words confirm the profound changes in how European NATO members think about producing this highly scarce commodity.<\/p>\n
Investments on the Rise <\/p>\n
The substantial increase in ammunition output is the result of extensive expansion of production facilities. Satellite observations made by Sentinel-1 satellites (operated by the European Space Agency) covered 150 factories belonging to 37 defense companies.<\/p>\n
From nearly one thousand satellite passes, it was determined that in 2020\u20132021 there were close to 800,000 square meters of new defense industry investments, while in recent months this figure has reached almost three million square meters. This includes not only the factories themselves, but also new roads and tree clearing for further expansion. \u201cThese are deep, structural changes,\u201d former NATO Director for Arms Control William Alberque told the \u201eFT\u201d.<\/p>\n
The outlet points to many well-known European companies that have made significant investments in recent years. These include Germany\u2019s Rheinmetall, Hungary\u2019s N7 Holding, and the UK\u2019s BAE Systems, all contributing to the aforementioned two million rounds of annual ammunition production in Europe. Poland has also played its part in this result. Just a few days ago, the country\u2019s prime minister announced that in 2025 Warsaw will produce 30,000 155mm shells, but thanks to ongoing investments (for example by PGZ), in two years\u2019 time production could reach as many as 200,000 shells annually.<\/p>\n
The Impact of ASAP <\/p>\n
These investments are the result of increased public spending as well as European Union funding, including from the ASAP program (The Act in Support of Ammunition Production). As an example, the \u201eFT\u201d cites Kongsberg, where the construction of a new missile factory was financed with USD 62 million from the state budget, with an additional USD 10 million coming from the aforementioned program adopted by the European Commission. Overall, ASAP funds have contributed to the expansion of more than thirty of the 90 facilities monitored by satellites. It is worth noting, however, that a significant portion of defense companies\u2019 investment decisions were made even before the program was implemented.<\/p>\n
Finally, an important but not entirely optimistic note: according to the \u201eFinancial Times\u201d, experts believe that \u201cactual production in Europe will likely be significantly lower than potential production capacity.\u201d Why? That could be the subject of a separate, in-depth analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New production lines at Mesko plants Photo. Jakub Borowski, Defence24.pl Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Copy link Send email Recent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[18156,2000,299,5187,1699,29861,8081,2821,19755],"class_list":{"0":"post-353814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-asap","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-financial-times","14":"tag-investments","15":"tag-nato","16":"tag-production"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115049009365996524","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}