Europe has a real defense commissioner — just not one appointed by Ursula von der Leyen

BERLIN — Andrius Kubilius is the formal nominee to become the European Union’s first defense commissioner, but there’s someone else with a lot more power and money already doing the job — Armin Papperger, the CEO of German arms-maker Rheinmetall.

While Kubilius cools his heels waiting for the European Parliament to begin hearings on Ursula von der Leyen’s new Commission, Papperger is already meeting with fellow arms industry titans as well as key national politicians and is driving real policy decisions.

The Rheinmetall boss “has very clear ideas on the EU defense future,” said an EU official who recently met him. “He has views on the countries we should reach deals with and those we should not.”

The EU is working on defense partnerships with South Korea and Japan, for example, and is also looking at ways to cooperate with the United Kingdom. Such pacts can be crucial for arms firms.

Another industry executive, speaking on condition of being granted anonymity, said Papperger has been a key voice in advocating for more defense spending across Europe, and also backs consolidation of the bloc’s traditionally fragmented defense sector.

For example, Papperger has lined up with the likes of Italy’s Leonardo and the U.K.’s BAE Systems on major industrial cooperation deals targeted at producing modern tanks and armored vehicles based on Rheinmetall’s Lynx platform for the Italian army, while working on Boxer trucks and Challenger 3 tanks for the U.K.

Using everything from sport sponsorship deals to robust and very public support for Kyiv, Papperger is pulling the defense industry out of the shadows. In the process, he’s put himself in the crosshairs of Russian assassins; spy agencies foiled an attempt on his life earlier this year.

He’s also in charge of an arms-making powerhouse.

Rheinmetall is sitting on a €48.6 billion order book. In the first half of this year it earned a profit of €404 million and Papperger said he expects sales to increase by €2 billion a year.

Rheinmetall is estimated to have taken on around 40 percent of a €100 billion fund to modernize the German army.

Listening to him “sometimes I was thinking [I was] speaking to the real defense commissioner,” the first official joked.

Limited power

By contrast, Kubilius has a lot less financial firepower.

He’ll be in charge of the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP) — a €1.5 billion cash pot for defense contractors. Getting more money will involve tangling with member countries over either issuing common debt for defense projects or expanding defense spending in the bloc’s seven-year budget.

Because there has never been a defense commissioner, Kubilius, a former Lithuanian prime minister, will have to try to snatch files from other powerful commissioners. For now, the European Parliament doesn’t even have a full defense committee — something it’s looking at changing.

Meanwhile, the silver-haired 61-year-old Papperger has turned Rheinmetall into a global artillery powerhouse since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The company acquired Spain’s shell-maker Expal in 2022, making it the biggest artillery player in Europe, while Papperger has signed off on deploying the proceeds of massive Bundeswehr contracts to new production lines around the world.

That ability to produce guns and ammunition makes Papperger, and other defense CEOs like Airbus’ Guillaume Faury and Saab boss Micael Johansson, crucial to Europe’s scramble to rearm and to send weapons to Kyiv.

“The current structure of the defense industrial base in Europe is entirely industry driven,” said Christian Mölling from the Bertelsmann Stiftung, a German think tank. “The big thing about Papperger and the others is that because of the size of their companies they can take risks that Brussels can’t.”

Doing deals

Papperger, who declined an interview request for this story, also has a deft diplomatic hand.

When talks between Leonardo and Franco-German arms-maker KNDS broke down, Papperger was quick to forge a deal with Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani to build battle land warfare systems based on Rheinmetall technology with an eye on the global export market.

Rheinmetall has also been a pioneer in pledging to build arms inside Ukraine.

Those kinds of moves offer access. Even once he clears the European Parliament’s confirmation process, Kubilius will struggle to get on the callback list of major national leaders.

In contrast, Papperger already has a direct line to leaders. He met British Prime Minister Keir Starmer during the latter’s flying visit to Berlin in late August, while regularly hobnobbing with senior German government officials such as Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. 

He also hosted Danish PM Mette Frederiksen, a vocal ally of Ukraine, on a tour of a future ammunition plant at Unterlüß in northern Germany, and met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv before committing to invest in maintenance plants for armored vehicles and ammunition factories inside Ukraine.

Around the world, Rheinmetall is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to ramping up production capacity — taking on billions in German government contracts and large slices of the limited EU aid to build out manufacturing lines.

While Kubilius has clear orders from von der Leyen to hunt for more investment for the private sector, Papperger is already playing that game. His company is drawing direct subsidies from national governments — key to opening factories in Hungary, Lithuania, Ukraine, South Africa and Australia.

The new plant under construction in Unterlüß is the centerpiece of a strategy to supply Germany’s Bundeswehr for decades.

“Rheinmetall is a driver of the consolidation of the European defense industry,” said Oliver Hoffmann, a Rheinmetall spokesperson.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the threat it poses to the EU has ended any ambiguity about the social utility of arms manufacturers.

“I was convinced from day one that I was doing the right thing, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it,” Papperger, who’s run Rheinmetall since 2013, told German public media in February. “I am doing the right thing because I am convinced that we are defending NATO, Germany, Europe and ultimately our democracy.”