Accelerating Operations in Europe

The war in Ukraine has changed much around the world, especially the view on defense spending across European nations that had cut their expenditure since the end of the Cold War.
Despite coming together to help Kyiv, Europe was in dire straits. It lacked the ammunition, vehicles, drones, air defenses and more. It was also reported that Europe lacked the funds for meaningful military buildup.
European leaders made it known that they needed to reassess, and fast. 
"We are living in the most momentous and dangerous of times," said The European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen as she proposed the ReArm Europe plan in early March. ReArm Europe will rebuild the continent's defenses and provide military aid to Ukraine.

"We are in an era of rearmament. And Europe is ready to massively boost its defense spending. Both, to respond to the short-term urgency to act and to support Ukraine but also to address the long-term need to take on much more responsibility for our own European security," she added, explaining that "a new financial EU instrument to support Member States" would be established to "strongly support EU efforts to achieve a rapid and significant increase in investments in Europe's defense capabilities."

As the war in Ukraine pushes countries to modernize their armed forces to ensure their own security and deterrence, Elbit Systems, its subsidiaries and local partners in Europe have been helping to optimize various Armed Forces across the continent with state-of-the-art solutions.
"We are definitely seeing that Europe has learnt lessons from the war between Ukraine and Russia," said Ran Kril, Executive Vice President International Marketing and Business Development at Elbit Systems. Because of that, European countries are considering to increase their defense capabilities and are also aiming to increase development and sustainment of products in their own countries to obtain indigenous capabilities."

A Growing Market
 

Elbit Systems, a global defense-tech company, has an extensive portfolio of innovative and operationally proven technologies that leverages Israel's high-tech ecosystem while being tailored to meet the unique needs and requirements of its customers, all while enabling knowledge transfer to local partners. 
With an increase in demand due to global security challenges, Elbit Systems has secured several noteworthy contracts over the past few years in Europe. 
Key contracts in the last year alone include: a $57 million contract to supply the Precise and Universal Launching System (PULS) to Germany, a $335 million contract to supply PULS rocket launchers and Hermes 900 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to a European country, a $60 million contract for counter-UAS solutions for a NATO European country, two contracts worth $175 million for the supply of EW (Electronic Warfare) and DIRCM (Directed Infrared Countermeasure) Self-Protection Suites to a European NATO country, a $53 million contract to supply the Crossbow unmanned turreted mortar system for a European customer, a $130 million contract to supply the Iron Fist Active Protection System (APS) to BAE Hagglunds for a European country, a $300 million contract to supply armored vehicle systems to a European customer, among others.
In 2023, Elbit secured contracts in the European markets for the PULS and ATMOS (Autonomous Truck Mounted Howitzer System), UAVs, tank ammunitions and mortar munitions, Xact goggles, EW self-protection suites, counter-UAS solutions, and more.
"Most of our solutions are highly relevant to Europe and are operationally proven," Kril explained. 
"Our entire Electronic Warfare portfolio, precision guided munitions, unmanned systems, all of them have fully been operated substantially in the Iron Swords war (between Israel and Hamas) and demonstrated very good results. These are examples of products that we assume that the European market would be interested in as we have already sold these systems to many European countries and Elbit's participation, revenue wise, has increased in the last couple of years."

Think Global, Be Local

The company employs thousands of workers around the globe, with a strong presence in Europe an increasing number of employees of subsidiaries and affiliates in the United Kingdom, Germany, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland and more. 
As part of its "global/local" strategy, Elbit aims to ensure a direct presence in the countries where it operates, with local management and employees tailored to meet the specific needs of each customer. This approach enhances local economies creating valuable employment opportunities, strengthens defense capabilities, facilitates knowledge, technology transfer and support the security of supply. 
"We as Elbit, have developed our "GLocal" (global/local) strategy with dozens of subsidiaries across Europe and we are strengthening their presence (from UK, Germany and others). We aim to continue expanding and strengthening our subsidiaries in order to support the countries in the localization of defense procurement," said Kril.
Across the continent, Elbit and its subsidiaries have a variety of solutions and subsystems as part of our large portfolio. But it's not only production and sustainment," Kril explained.

"In many countries we are developing intellectual property that we are expanding to the requirements of the customers. We have dozens of engineers, not only manufacturing and technicians, and we see more appetite for those countries in those regards."

Comprehensive Open Architecture Portfolio

While European nations use a variety of defense systems which are usually not compatible with each other, Elbit Systems' portfolio is built on an open architecture approach, allowing for quick and precise adaptation of its technology to meet local customer needs and integration with other systems and platforms.
And despite an ongoing war in Israel, the company has demonstrated its ability to meet rising demand, successfully fulfilling its commitments, while maintaining close and transparent collaboration with its global customers.
With years of operational experience and ongoing research and development, Elbit's state-of-the-art solutions and platforms are amongst the most up-to-date on the market, making them important for the defense of Europe.