From companies exporting or importing weapons to the weight of exports on turnover, the defence industry numbers

While the issue of armaments, linked to that of security and the proliferation of crisis areas, from the Middle East to Ukraine, is increasingly under the lens of public opinion, the Secretary General of Defence and National Armaments Director, Lieutenant General Luciano Portolano, spoke on Thursday 11 April in a hearing before the joint committees on Defence and on Foreign and EU Affairs.

The objective of the intervention was to provide the Commissions with information deemed useful for the examination of the draft law amending Law 185 of 1990, which regulates the rules on the control of the export, import and transit of armament materials.

Portolano has provided two numbers that can help get an idea of what is behind the armaments theme. The first: there are 414 companies registered in the registry, i.e. those that can carry out export, import, and transit transactions of armament materials, while the entries, referring to the lists of armament materials filed, are over 190,000. The second piece of information provided by the general: the competitiveness of the defence industries, Portolano recalled, is measured in the international arena, also in view of the fact that approximately 70% of their turnover is linked to exports.

The General Secretariat of Defence and the National Armaments Directorate has three main functions: it maintains the National Register of Companies; it manages international co-production programmes; and it renders opinions for the issuing of authorisations. Authorisations to carry out export, import and transit transactions of armaments material can only be issued to those registered in this register. Companies registered in the register are also obliged to deposit the list of armament materials that can be exported, codified according to shared European standards. Hence the numbers provided by Portolano. An interministerial commission, chaired by a magistrate of the Council of State, has the task of deciding on the registration of companies that have applied for it.

Portolano recalled that one of the most promising and effective tools for offering business opportunities to the national defence industry are Government to Government (G2G) agreements. "I would like to take this opportunity to share, in this forum, that a reflection is underway in the defence sector on the advisability of revising the regulatory framework governing G2G agreements," he said.