Euromissile

The joint venture Euromissile was created in 1972 by Germany's Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA) and France's Aerospatiale SA. Since the mid-1970s, and to this day, the Milan and Hot anti-tank weapons and the Roland surface-to-air system have been highly successful. This consortium's volume of business in 1981 totaled 3.79 billion French francs (before taxes).

Worldwide sought-after German-French productions such as the "Roland" anti-aircraft missile and the "Hot"and "Milan" antitank systems are supplied through the French "Euromissile" company. In a government agreementconcluded in 1972 Bonn and Paris agreed to interpretand apply their countries' weapons export law "in the spirit of German-French cooperation." Under SPD Social Democratic Party of Germany] Chancellor Helmut Schmidt the Federal Government stipulated in 1982 that German parts for "Roland," "Hot," and"Milan" that were incorporated in the weapon in France "will be treated as goods of French origin." They simply turned into French parts that are not subject to German export control. Thus, German consciousness remained unburdened.

Euromissile, originally set up by Aerospatiale-Matra of France and DaimlerChrysler Aerospace of Germany, is now a subsidiary of the EADS company. A merger deal in 2003 saw Euromissile come under the control of trans-European weapons manufacturer MBDA, which used to be known as Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm. Among other things, MBDA builds guided missile systems and state-of-the-art anti-tank missiles. MBDA is 37.5% owned by EADS, with BAe Systems – better-known as British Aerospace – taking another 37.5%. Italy’s partly state-owned Finmeccanica, a major aerospace and defence conglomerate, controls the remaining 25%.