EUDEX Debuts in Essen Alongside NATO Air Power Summit

Messe Essen will host the inaugural edition of the Euro Defence Expo (EUDEX) from September 22 to 25, a new international defense and security trade fair timed deliberately to run alongside the annual conference of NATO's Joint Air Power Competence Centre (JAPCC). The pairing gives a first-year event access to more than 400 senior military representatives from NATO's 32 member states, a level of institutional draw few debut trade fairs achieve.

A New Format for Europe's Fifth-Largest Arms Exporter

Germany is the world's fifth-largest arms exporter, according to SIPRI, and is home to several of Europe's largest systems manufacturers, including Rheinmetall, Airbus, Diehl and Hensoldt. Yet the country has not had a defense-industry trade fair on the scale of Poland's MSPO or France's Eurosatory. Messe Essen's organizers describe EUDEX as a genuinely new trade fair format domestically, built from the outset as a dual civil-military event running alongside Security Essen, the venue's long-established civil security fair, rather than as a standalone arms show. The German Federal Ministry of Defence has given the new fair high-level backing, according to organizers.

A Big Debut Roster

More than 270 exhibitors are expected to take part, spread across 11 defense and security categories spanning the industry's value chain: personal equipment, command and communication technology, artificial intelligence and software, unmanned systems and robotics, intelligence and surveillance, training and simulation, and vehicles and heavy equipment. Organizers report particularly strong representation in modern industrial manufacturing, logistics and supply chain services, and CBRN defense. A year before the show, registered exhibitors already spanned 12 countries, including Belgium, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Poland, Ukraine and the United States; the final roster has grown well past that early count. The adjacent welding and cutting trade fair Schweissen & Schneiden is also taking a joint stand at EUDEX, an unusual crossover between the defense and industrial manufacturing trade show circuits.

The NATO Pairing

The JAPCC tie-up is the most distinctive element of EUDEX's launch. EUDEX project manager Julia Jacob called the arrangement "an essential component of our holistic approach to security," pointing to the direct access it gives exhibitors to international decision-makers attending the NATO conference. Running two events with separate institutional owners under one roof is unusual for a first-year trade fair, and organizers are positioning it as the reason companies should treat EUDEX's debut as more than a typical launch year.

A New Forum for Embassies

The program also adds an International Diplomatic Forum on September 23, aimed specifically at embassies and consulates rather than industry buyers. It includes a diplomatic briefing on the role of diplomacy in European security, a roundtable on the future of European defense cooperation, guided tours of the exhibition floor, and dedicated networking sessions. The addition reflects EUDEX's broader positioning: not just a product showcase, but a venue for the policy conversations increasingly shaping where European defense budgets go next.

EUDEX runs across Halls 3 and 4 and part of the Galeria at Messe Essen, alongside Security Essen and the EUDEX Conference by CPM. Whether the format's civil-military, industry-NATO combination becomes a fixture on the European calendar or a one-off experiment will depend largely on how this first edition performs.