Europe’s Defence Overruns, Measured

About this report

Europe’s defence overrun problem is not only a question of programmes becoming more expensive, later or smaller than originally planned. It is also a question of public comparability. Cost growth, unit-cost escalation, quantity reductions, schedule slippage and portfolio affordability gaps are disclosed through different national institutions, under different fiscal conventions and with different levels of parliamentary visibility.

Without a disciplined evidentiary standard, any ranking of European defence overruns risks confusing a programme overrun with a delivery failure, a budget gap with a contract escalation, or an apparent saving with a higher cost per delivered system.

Key questions this report answers

• Why does measuring Europe's defence overruns require a disciplined evidence index rather than raw cost-growth figures?
• What is the European disclosure problem and how do differing national institutions and fiscal conventions distort comparability?
• Why does the United Kingdom serve as the European disclosure benchmark for the overrun evidence index?
• What does the resulting ranking reveal about overruns across France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and Sweden?

Inside this report

• Executive Summary
• Why Europe’s Defence Overruns Need an Evidence Index
• The European Disclosure Problem
• Building the Defence Overrun Evidence Index
• The United Kingdom as the European Disclosure Benchmark
• France and Germany
• Spain, Italy, Poland, Sweden and EU-Level Audit
• What the Ranking Reveals

Who it's for

Strategy, corporate-development and investment teams that need an ecosystem-level view — budgets, industrial capacity and technology landscapes — before committing capital or capacity.

Related reports

• National Promotional Banks and Europe’s Defence-Finance Gap — Germany
• Carmenta Germany GmbH: Geospatial Software Capabilities for Defence and Mission-Critical Systems — Sweden
• The Emergence of a French-Led Intermediate Deterrence Architecture in Europe — France
• The Rise of the ‘De-Risking State’: How Europe’s €200bn+ Defence Finance Shift is Unlocking New Asset Classes (2025–2030) — Germany
• The Economic Impact of Europe’s Rising Defence Spending — Germany
• Cicor: Sovereign Electronics for European Defense — France

Methodology, format & delivery

DFM reports are built from primary and official sources — TED procurement notices, CORDIS and the EU Funding & Tenders Portal, EIB operations, the NATO Innovation Fund portfolio, SIPRI data, official budget documents and company disclosures — read together with the underlying legal texts. Sources are cited in the document; it reflects them as of its publication date (19 June 2026). You receive a 22-page PDF, watermarked to you on every page, delivered on the confirmation page and by e-mail immediately after checkout (personal link valid 72 hours, up to 5 downloads). Guest checkout, single-user licence — Terms of Sale.

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