Market evolution: Military weapons (CN 9301) — 2015–2025

Introduction

This report examines the evolution of European Union trade in military weapons (Combined Nomenclature code 9301) covering artillery weapons, rocket launchers, and other military firearms over the 2015–2025 period. The category encompasses a broad range of military hardware including guns, howitzers, mortars, rocket launchers, flame-throwers, grenade launchers, torpedo tubes, and sub-machine guns.

The period under review witnessed a profound transformation in the EU's trade position for this product category. What began as a modest market with a consistent trade surplus evolved into a heavily import-dependent sector with a substantial deficit, driven primarily by geopolitical upheaval following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the subsequent acceleration of European rearmament programmes. Total import values surged from €15.3 million in 2015 to over €1.15 billion by 2025 — a 7,413% increase — while the trade balance swung from a €51.1 million surplus to a €759 million deficit. For full trade details, see the General Overview dashboard.

I. From surplus to deficit: the structural reversal of EU military-weapon trade

The pre-2022 period showed moderate and relatively balanced trade

Between 2015 and 2021, EU trade in CN 9301 products was characterised by relatively modest volumes on both sides, with the Union generally maintaining a trade surplus. In 2015, exports stood at €66.4 million against imports of €15.3 million, yielding a comfortable surplus of €51.1 million. The market fluctuated year-on-year — exports dipped to a minimum of €29.8 million before recovering, and imports hovered in the single-digit to low double-digit millions — but no structural break was apparent. The unit price for imports remained relatively stable in the €59,000–€75,000 per tonne range during this early phase, suggesting a consistent product mix.

2022 marks a decisive inflection point

The year 2022 represents a clear structural break in the data. Import values leapt to €482 million (up from €47 million in 2021), while exports rose to €728 million. However, the import surge was only beginning: by 2024, imports reached €921 million, and by 2025 they stood at €1.15 billion — a level that dwarfed even the record export figure of €728 million seen in 2023. The trade balance turned decisively negative in 2024 (−€537 million) and deteriorated further in 2025 (−€759 million). This pattern strongly aligns with the timeline of European rearmament commitments made after February 2022, as EU member states began placing large procurement orders for heavy weaponry from non-EU suppliers.

Rising unit values signal a shift toward more expensive systems

Import prices per tonne rose from €59,151 in 2015 to €219,127 in 2025, an increase of 271%. The supplementary unit data for imports — counting items rather than tonnes — shows a much more modest rise from 8,743 to 24,362 units (+179%), while the supplementary price per item surged from €2,201 to €47,122 (+2,041%). This divergence indicates that the EU is importing fewer but heavier and significantly more expensive weapons systems per unit, consistent with a shift from smaller arms toward artillery and missile systems. Export prices per tonne similarly increased from €89,680 to €154,524 (+72%), though more moderately, suggesting the EU's outbound trade remained more diversified in product mix.

Source: General Overview

II. Poland as the epicentre of European rearmament, and South Korea as the dominant external supplier

Poland's import surge dominates the EU-wide figures

Among EU member states, Poland's role in driving the import boom is overwhelming. Polish imports of CN 9301 products soared from €6.3 million in 2015 to €999.2 million in 2025 — a 15,880% increase and by far the largest absolute growth of any member state. By 2025, Poland alone accounted for the overwhelming majority of EU imports in this category. This pattern reflects Poland's ambitious defence modernisation programme, which accelerated sharply after 2022 in response to the security environment on NATO's eastern flank.

Other eastern and northern EU members also significantly increased imports: Estonia grew from €2.6 million to €64.9 million (+2,385%), and Spain from €1.5 million to €40.8 million (+2,605%). By contrast, Romania — which had been the largest importer in 2015 at €111.6 million — saw its imports collapse to just €534,268 by 2025 (−99.5%), suggesting either the completion of earlier procurement cycles or a redirection of sourcing.

Source: Top reporters by value

South Korea has become the EU's primary non-EU weapons supplier

Among external partners, the Republic of Korea emerged as the dominant source of EU military weapon imports. Korean-sourced imports rose from €155.3 million in 2015 to €948.4 million in 2025, a 511% increase that made it by far the largest single-country supplier. Notably, Korean imports were already the largest category in 2015, suggesting an established defence-industrial relationship that was massively amplified by the post-2022 rearmament wave — likely including large-scale orders for Korean-designed howitzers and multiple-launch rocket systems.

The United States, while a traditional defence partner, saw imports grow from €3.6 million to €126.2 million, establishing it as the second-largest supplier. The United Kingdom followed at €60.8 million. The top partners dashboard provides full partner-level detail.

Ukraine became the EU's largest export destination

On the export side, Ukraine's trajectory is extraordinary: EU exports to Ukraine rose from just €0.6 million in 2015 to €295 million in 2025 — a 48,396% increase. The peak was reached in 2023 at €580.9 million, before moderating somewhat. This pattern clearly reflects the large-scale provision of military equipment to Ukraine following Russia's full-scale invasion, with the 2023 peak likely coinciding with major arms packages and the subsequent decline potentially indicating a stabilisation of supply flows or a shift in the types of assistance provided.

Other notable export destinations include the United States (€23.6 million, +639%) and Norway (€20.5 million, +3,813%). Meanwhile, traditional Middle Eastern export markets such as Saudi Arabia (−55.5%), Iraq (−99.7%), and Israel (−99.1%) saw significant declines, suggesting a reallocation of EU export capacity toward the Ukraine theatre and NATO allies.

Source: Top partners by value

III. Market concentration, supply shocks, and shifting competitive dynamics

Import and export markets have both become significantly more concentrated

The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) for import value rose from 1,922 in 2015 to 6,978 in 2025, a 263% increase that signals a dramatic concentration of the EU's import base. An HHI approaching 7,000 indicates a highly concentrated market, consistent with the dominance of South Korea and Poland in the import figures. Export concentration also increased, though more moderately, rising from 2,392 to 5,853 (+145%). Both the import and export markets moved from a moderately competitive structure to a far more concentrated one, raising questions about supply-chain resilience and diversification. The full HHI evolution is available on the concentration dashboard.

Source: Concentration dashboard

Specialisation reveals a geographically concentrated European defence-industrial base

Export specialisation analysis (using the Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage, or RSCA, indicator for 2025) shows that Finland (RSCA: 0.94), Slovakia (0.68), Poland (0.62), and Spain (0.57) have the strongest comparative advantages in CN 9301 exports. These four countries collectively account for a dominant share of the EU's outward trade in military weapons. At the other end of the spectrum, Belgium (RSCA: −1.00, effectively zero exports) and the Netherlands (−0.50) show no meaningful specialisation, reflecting their different roles in the European defence ecosystem. Notably, Poland and Spain appear both as highly specialised exporters and as major importers, suggesting they function as both production hubs and major procurement centres — a dual role that could reflect assembly, integration, or transhipment activities. The specialisation data is available on the specialisation tab.

Price shocks reflect geopolitical turbulence in the export market

The volatility analysis identifies several notable price shocks in the export data. The most striking is the price shock detected for exports to Israel in 2019, with an abnormality score of 645.4 and a price shift of +4,305%, though it represented only 1.6% of total export value. A far more consequential shock occurred in exports to Ukraine around 2021, with an abnormality of 283.9 and a price shift of +472%, representing 88.6% of export value at that time — this clearly captures the onset of large-scale arms transfers. A third shock, to Norway in 2020, showed a 1,347% price shift. These price discontinuities likely reflect a combination of changing product mix (from lighter to heavier systems), urgency premiums, and the arrival of entirely new categories of weapons in the trade data. Full shock details are on the supply-shocks tab.

Artillery and rocket systems drove the import boom at the product-segment level

Breaking down the import data by product sub-segment reveals that the growth was overwhelmingly concentrated in artillery weapons (CN 930110) and rocket launchers/projectors (CN 930120). Artillery imports in tonnage grew from 56.7 tonnes in 2015 to 3,500 tonnes in 2025, while rocket launcher imports rose from 177.2 tonnes to 1,577.5 tonnes. The "other military weapons" category (CN 930190), which includes sub-machine guns, grew more modestly from 24.7 tonnes to 169.9 tonnes. In value terms, artillery imports reached €574.9 million and rocket launchers €538.5 million by 2025, together accounting for over 95% of total imports. This confirms that the EU's post-2022 rearmament has prioritised heavy conventional firepower — howitzers, MLRS, and similar systems — over smaller arms. Product segment details are available on the product comparison dashboard.

Conclusion

The EU trade in military weapons (CN 9301) underwent a fundamental transformation between 2015 and 2025. The period can be divided into two distinct phases: a relatively calm 2015–2021 phase characterised by modest volumes and a structural trade surplus, followed by a dramatic post-2022 acceleration that turned the EU into a net importer with a €759 million deficit by 2025.

Three structural shifts stand out. First, Poland and South Korea have emerged as the pivotal nodes in the EU's military weapons trade — Poland as the primary importing member state, and South Korea as the dominant external supplier — reflecting both geographic proximity to the eastern threat and Korea's competitive positioning in heavy conventional systems. Second, Ukraine has become the EU's single largest export destination, absorbing €295 million in 2025 and peaking at €581 million in 2023, fundamentally reshaping the EU's export geography away from Middle Eastern markets. Third, the market has become dramatically more concentrated on both the import and export sides, with HHI indices roughly tripling — a development that may warrant attention from a supply-chain resilience perspective.

The product mix has tilted decisively toward heavy systems — artillery and rocket launchers — at the expense of lighter weapons, reflecting the operational demands of high-intensity conventional warfare. Going forward, the sustainability of these trends will depend on the evolution of the conflict in Ukraine, the pace of European defence industrial capacity expansion, and whether the current import dependency on non-EU suppliers is gradually replaced by indigenous production.