Technically it’s known as an “expansive tendency” or a “buoyant sector”, but more prosaically it means that in 2006 Italian arms exports increased by 61% compared with 2005 for a total of €2.19 billion, a record for the last twenty years. The figures come from a preliminary government report on the export of arms, presented to parliament at the beginning of the month.
 
The Union’s promises. The export of helicopters, bombs and such like also produced an increase in the number of government authorisations to open arms contract negotiations, with 2,192 issued compared to 1,929 in 2005 and 1,815 in 2004. Obviously this does not mean that all the negotiations will result in contracts, but all analysts agree that from the technical point of view “there is a new-found dynamism in the international scenario characterised by a high level of competition”. The optimism of the economists and arms manufacturers is in stark contrast to the delusion of those who voted for the Prodi government in the belief that there would be a change in direction compared with the last government, also in the light of the Union’s election programme which promised “in the area of European cooperation, to promote a policy aimed at reducing spending on arms”. A promise that has since been disregarded.
 
The ten “sisters”. Of the ten most important companies in the sector seven are part of Finmeccanica, where the Italian State is the main shareholder. Agusta has the lion’s share of arms exports with €810 million, followed by Alenia, Oto Melara, AVio, Lital, Selex Sistemi Integrati, Aermacchi, Alcatel Alenia, Iveco and Galileo Avionica. Italian arms are mainly destined for the United States which, with the purchase of “Marine One”, the presidential helicopter supplied by Agusta-Westland, accounts for 30% of total exports for a total of €810 million, while the second most popular destination is the United Arab Emirates, which has bought Italian arms for a total of €338 million.
 
The expert. Francesco Vignarca, coordinator for the disarmament network, spoke of the worrying increase. “One worry”, he told PeaceReporter, “derives from the discovery that while before it was thought that from the 1990s up until today arms exports had followed the classic peak and trough market curve, it’s now clear that there has been a constant increase in exports. This is because there was an error in applying the rate of inflation. Another thing is the destination of the exports. Apart from the USA, the arms are going to the Emirates, Nigeria, India and Pakistan, which are all unstable countries that by their nature or in conformity with their legislation give no guarantees that the arms will remain there. The government report tells us the destination of large-scale arms, but it doesn’t say anything about light arms. This means that light arms, small-calibre weapons and technological material can be “triangled”, which means they can leave from here and eventually arrive in a third country, which is what happened two years ago with the Galileo night vision visors that ended up in Iraq after passing through Syria”.
 
“Armed” banks. As always, the banks are at the centre of the arms sales. The Finance Ministry has issued 6% more payment authorisations, giving the go-ahead to 930 transactions (876 in 2005), and almost half of the definitive export transactions  have been negotiated by two banks – BNP Paribas (with 19.47%) and San Paolo-IMI (with 29.93%), with the latter tripling its volume of business from €164 million received in 2005 to more than €446 million in 2006.