Professor Vakhtang Partsvaniya of Caucasus University’s School of Business has published a new article in Wirtschaftsdienst, a German economic policy journal indexed in Scopus (SCImago Q3) and focused on current economic and social policy debates in Germany and Europe.

The article, titled “Europas Automobilhersteller werden Teil der Verteidigungsindustrie” (“Europe’s Automakers Are Becoming Part of the Defense Economy”), examines the growing involvement of European automobile manufacturers in the defence sector against the backdrop of major changes in Europe’s economic and geopolitical environment. It discusses how the war in Ukraine, increasing defence expenditure, competition from Chinese manufacturers, changes in U.S. trade policy, and underutilised automotive production capacity are creating new incentives for cooperation between automobile manufacturers and the defence industry.

The article highlights emerging examples of such cooperation involving major European manufacturers. Rather than suggesting a large-scale conversion of the automotive industry to defence production, the authors argue that the more likely development is the selective integration of automotive manufacturers into defence supply chains, where their expertise in large-scale manufacturing, quality control, supply-chain management and technology integration can complement specialised defence producers.

The article was co-authored with Prof. Bodo Sturm of HTWK Leipzig (Leipzig University of Applied Sciences), Germany.

The full article is available here.