By Pierre Tran
Paris – MBDA was beating its own targets in building missiles in larger numbers and greater speed, at a time when the ties between Western allies were shifting, the chief executive of the European missile company said March 17.
Eric Béranger said last year he had forecast there would be a 50 percent increase in production of the Aster surface-to-air missile in 2026 compared to 2022, the year seen as baseline, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“In fact we are very much ahead of this,” he said. The company would deliver this year five more Aster than the company had forecast.
“What I can tell you is we are ahead of time on each of the targets mentioned last year,” he said, and that was true for its range of weapons, including Acheron, common anti-air modular missile (CAMM), and Enforcer.
Béranger was speaking at a news conference on MBDA 2024 financial results, which showed new highs in sales and orders. The company withholds profit figures.
MBDA is a joint venture held by Airbus (37.5 pct), BAE Systems (37.5 pct), and Leonardo (25 pct), with British, French, and Italian procurement offices holding key roles.
The missile company has been responding, along with other European arms manufacturers, to calls from national procurement and client nations for faster and larger delivery of weaponry in response to the war in Ukraine.
A sign of the times could be seen with President Emmanuel Macron visiting March 18 the Luxeuil air base, eastern France, where the commander in chief said France will order a further batch of the Rafale, and that air base will be home of a future version of the fighter jet armed with a hypersonic nuclear-tipped missile from 2035.
That will be part of “the modernization of our nuclear deterrent,” he said.
Two squadrons of the planned Rafale F5 will be based at Luxeuil, with almost €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) earmarked to upgrade the base 2026-2032. Some 2,000 civilian and military staff will work on the base by 2030, up from the present 1,200 personnel.
MBDA is developing the ASN4G, a fourth-generation missile which will replace the ASMP-A nuclear-tipped cruise missile carried by the Rafale F4.
The then defense minister, Florence Parly, said in June 2019 Luxeuil would be a base for the Rafale, with the first squadron to be stationed there from 2032.
With recent public debate of Paris offering European allies an independent nuclear umbrella, Macron’s visit to Luxeuil had the significance of “strategic signaling,” afternoon daily Le Monde reported.
That air base is home of the Mirage 2000-5, which Paris is sending to Kyiv. Macron raised the prospect of dispatching further Mirages, some from allies flying the French-built fighters.
On the combat side, Ukrainian forces hit a Russian Sukhoi fighter last week with an Aster missile fired from the Franco-Italian SAMP/T surface-to-air system, Béranger said, citing Ukrainian authorities.
The unit price of an Aster missile is understood to be around €1 million.
Uncertain Behavior
An urgent restocking of European military stores and despatch of weapons to Kyiv have taken a new dimension with the Trump administration, which appears to hold the European allies in low esteem.
“We are today really living through historical moments,” Béranger said. “We are living through a moment where the alliances…are being challenged. We are living the moment where the behavior of historical allies is uncertain.”
MBDA was adapting to “those consequences” by streamlining production, he said.
The company last year built and delivered a third more missiles than in 2023, he said. That ramp up meant production of missiles in 2025 would be double that of 2023. That was “the magnitude” of what was going on in the company.
On the Mistral man-portable missile, the company had hit a forecast four times increase in monthly production in 2024, and there would be a greater increase this year, he said.
The company expected to beat a forecast halving of production time, he said.
MBDA had taken a new approach, he said, with building up stocks of parts in anticipation of orders from client nations, for which “time is absolutely of the essence.”
That meant “increasing risk for MBDA,” he said.
That risk appeared to have delivered financial reward.
MBDA reported 2024 sales of €4.9 billion, up from €4.5 billion a year ago, with orders of €13.8 billion, up from €9.9 billion. The order book rose to €37 billion from €28 billion.
The company booked profit of €640 million, financial website La Tribune reported. MBDA reported 2023 operating profit of €498 million, as reported by website Airitage.
The company was investing €2.4 billion in new plant and equipment over five years to boost production, Béranger said, with that amount appearing to creep up to €2.5 billion.
The company was recruiting 2,600 staff this year, the same number as last year.
There have been several European summits since the remarks by the U.S. vice president at the Munich security conference, he said.
“This is a very specific moment, where Europe is…actively discussing how it wants to take its destiny in its own hands,” he said. “It is a little bit of a moment of truth for Europe.”
Strained relations with the Trump administration has raised pressure for Europe to rearm, with the European Commission calling March 19 for member states and allies to buy arms built in the European Union.
Part of that Buy European policy was a plan to offer access to easy credit with a €150 billion fund, dubbed Security Action for Europe (SAFE), which the E.U. would raise in the capital markets. The U.K. was not – for now – on the list of allies which could tap that E.U. loan.
Design Authority
There has been debate on whether to buy European, Béranger said, whether to depend on suppliers outside the Continent or develop an “internal European capability.”
Designing systems meant “you know them, designing…means you do not ask anybody on how it works, whether to adapt in one way or another,” he said. “You don’t ask anybody outside… for approval of use or adaptation.”
This design authority allowed MBDA to adapt in a few weeks the British Storm Shadow and French Scalp cruise missile to fit on the Ukraine air force Sukhoi fighter, he said.
The question was how much priority should be given to European capabilities, he said.
Asked about a reported row on an attempt to reorganize management, Béranger said MBDA had to deal with the stakeholders, namely staff, shareholders, and clients.
There was no greater sovereignty issue for France than nuclear deterrence, he said.
That could be the perceived importance of the French manager working on the airborne nuclear-armed missile, with concern Paris stood to lose management weight if a previous planned reorganization went ahead.
The company was seeking to move from a “model which is balanced, which is satisfying everybody” to a new structure, he said. The question was between the three circles – staff, shareholders, and the domestic countries – was there an intersection?
“This is what we are exploring now,” he said.
The company has been working on a reorganization intended to speed up production, as requested by the client nations. There had been a plan for the Italian shareholder, Leonardo, to place two Italian executives in top management posts, but France and the U.K. had objected to the reshuffle, forcing a rethink.
More Aster
France, Italy, and the U.K., partner nations on the Aster missile program, placed an order for a further 218 of the surface-to-air missile, and also signed contract amendments for speeded up delivery of 134 Aster which had been ordered in 2024, the Direction Générale de l’Armement procurement office said in a March 14 statement.
A faster delivery of the 134 Aster meant the missile would be built between 2025 and 2026, the DGA said, reflecting faster production by MBDA and subcontractors.
The statement did not give details of how those orders would be shared out between the partner nations, nor the value of the orders.
The contract amendment with Eurosam covered production of Aster 30 B1 ground and naval missiles, and Aster 15 naval missiles, the joint venture between MBDA and Thales said in a March 11 statement.
The British Royal Navy operates the Aster on its Horizon air defense frigates.
France and Italy sent an SAMP/T missile launcher to Ukraine as part of their military aid, and that system will need restock of Aster weapons.
The armed forces minister, Sébastien Lecornu, told a news conference March 26 2024 there would be an order for 200 Aster missiles worth almost €2 billion, in addition to a previous 200-strong order for Aster. That previous order would have been a deal sealed in December 2022.
On the Rafale, the defense minister has recently spoken of the need for ordering a further 30 fighters, with 20 going to the French air force and 10 for the navy.
Featured image credit: ID 366007493 | European Defense © Ganna Zelinska | Dreamstime.com