Rheinmetall Reshapes East Europe’s Soviet-Era Defense Industry
Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger, center, with Bulgaria's Prime Minister Rossen Jeliazkov, right, during a signing ceremony for a joint project of gunpowder and ammunition plant in Sofia, on Oct. 28.
Photographer: Nikolay Doychinov/AFP/Getty ImagesThe EU is betting billions of euros that the legacy of Bulgaria and Romania as Soviet-era ammunition powerhouses can be revived and retooled for the future battlefield.
Rheinmetall AG, the German defense giant, is leading a series of multibillion-euro EU-backed investments to build cutting-edge production facilities in both countries — where workers still operate machinery that has barely changed since the 1970s — as part of a broader effort to plug Europe’s critical shortage of shells.