European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS)

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

Wendela de Vries

The second biggest arms company of Europe, EADS, has its headquarters in the Netherlands. Although these headquarters are not much more than a mailbox – EADS has the same tax policies as Starbucks – it means the company falls under Dutch law and has to have an annual shareholders meeting in Amsterdam. It has become a good Dutch tradition to welcome the EADS shareholders with banners and loud noise.

Wendela de Vries

European arms giant EADS is selling all over the world: From India and Pakistan to Colombia and Kazakhstan. In 2011 it made a revenue of 50 billion euros, a quarter of which was earned by arms trade. The 2011 arms profit was 11.6 billion euro. With that amount of money you could provide basic education for all the children in the world who presently cannot go to school. EADS also produces civil planes, for example the Airbus passengers plane.

Tim Wright

Each year, the nine nuclear-armed nations spend a combined total of more than US$100 billion on their nuclear forces – assembling new warheads, modernizing old ones, and building ballistic missiles, bombers and submarines to deliver them. Much of this work is carried out by private corporations, which are financed by a vast web of financial institutions around the world.

Although Finland is not a very big arms producer, it still has its share of the market of death. During the past decade, arms exports from Finland have doubled, but still only reach about 1% of all the EU exports. Many of the new arms deals have been made with countries in the Middle East, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Jürgen Grässlin

With hardly any arms-producing company are claim and reality further apart than with EADS. While - in the directive "integrity and transparency" - the Board of Directors declared ethical responsibility to underlie their actions, even dictators and sham democrats are equipped. A serious example of a purely profit-oriented business policy include arms transfers to Libya where in the war between the dictatorial regime of Gaddafi and the Western-dominated "alliance of the willing" EADS weapons are used on both sides. War is good for business - at EADS.

Wendela de Vries

Wendela de Vries
Campagne tegen Wapenhandel

The European Aeronatic Defence and Space company, EADS, is the second largest military producer in Europe. The company is owned by German Dailmer (producer of civil Mercedes cars but also of many types of military vehicles), the French company Lagardère, (partly state owned and partly privately owned by Arnaud Lagardère), a Spanish public investment fund and several big private investment funds. And also, surprisingly, by the peace movement. German peace activists bought shares for € 15 each, therewith buying access to the yearly shareholder meeting and the right to speak.

Tikiri

Every other year, Eurosatory is back, and every time, peace activists and activists against the arms trade try to use it to raise awareness about how the French state and French companies don't care about peace when it comes to building, selling, and buying armament systems and components.
On the Tuesday of what they call the "International Land and Air Homeland Defence Week", Eurosatory's organisers are hosting an Official Exhibitor Reception, which was this year at les Invalides – well known building in Paris. This is normally the opportunity for us to show our disgust and our opposition to this trade. Well, normally - as this year - opponents to Eurosatory have been sent half a mile from the spot as if we were so badly hurting their conscience...

Photo and video material from the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla expose the use of European and US produced war material. The attack on the relief boats was executed by Israeli navy special forces Unit 13 (Shayetet 13). Several large and small navy ships, as well as helicopters, were used, armed with US and European weapons.

Indian acquisitions of military hardware are the hot topic in the global armaments bazaar. India is expected to spend around $30 billion on arms imports over the next few years. India is perhaps the world’s largest importer of armaments with annual expenditure of around $6 billion on this count, a sizeable proportion of India’s defence budget of $28 billion for 2009-10.

While diplomats and lobbyists are preparing for the renewal of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and peace activists are preparing for a closure of European nuclear bases on april the 3th, the arms industry is making money of developing new nukes. These are the biggest profiteers making new NATO nukes:

For the US

Honeywell is one of the biggest global arms companies, although only 10% of its profits comes from arms. Honeywell produces equipment for simulated nuclear explosions. Such simulated explosion are essential to develop new nuclear weapons.