Competing political loyalties? The European Commission and the defence industry lobby

Russia’s war against Ukraine and the EU’s expanding defence ambitions have heightened the strategic importance of the European defence industry in Brussels. Yet little is known about how defence firms lobby EU institutions or how receptive the European Commission is to such influence. This article offers the first systematic analysis of defence-industry lobbying at the EU level, aiming to find out under what conditions the Commission engages with the defence industry. We conceptualise defence lobbying not only as the pursuit of commercial interests but also as a political instrument through which firms—and the states aligned with them—seek to shape Europe’s defence integration. Drawing on liberal intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism, we derive competing expectations about whether lobbying follows national lines or reflects supranational engagement. Empirically, we map the lobbying activities of roughly 150 defence firms and associations, including major SIPRI Top 100 producers, European industry groups, and selected third-country actors, using data from the EU Transparency Register (2019–2024). The results show that, despite emerging signs of transnational mobilisation, defence-industry lobbying remains nationally structured and that highly resourceful actors—including non-EU firms—enjoy disproportionately greater access.