EU fails to meet artillery shell promise to Ukraine
The European Union failed to fulfil its commitment to Ukraine and did not deliver one million artillery shells by March 2024. "The Economist" writes about the European arms production bottleneck that emerged after the Cold War and became evident recently following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The British Weekly highlights the bottleneck in European ammunition production due to insufficient explosives. The issue, which surfaced because of arms supplies to Ukraine, arose after the Cold War when European manufacturers of these materials began to scale back operations and shut down factories.
"The Economist" mentions that the last large plant producing TNT is in Poland, referring to Nitro-Chem.
Prof. Johann Höcherl from the Bundeswehr University noted that for decades, production was adapted to peacetime needs, not to industrial-scale production
Three to four years to build an explosives factory
To accelerate the production process, the European Union granted €500 million in funding in March. The majority, or 3/4 of this amount, approximately £430 million, is expected to go to explosives manufacturers, writes "Rzeczpospolita."
As The Economist pointed out, The industry doubts it can increase its capacity as quickly as Brussels would like. Building an explosives factory from scratch takes three to seven years.
Deliveries from countries such as Japan and India are expected to help fill the gaps in the European market.
