Europe has never invested so much in defence. The challenge now is to make the most of these resources.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there has been a dramatic change in the European security landscape. As a result, Europe is now spending billions on defence. Pressure to spend more has also intensified within NATO. At the 2025 Hague Summit, allies agreed to increase defence and defence-related spending to five per cent of GDP by 2035, a decision strongly advocated by the United States under president Donald Trump.
According to a September 2026 report from the European Court of Auditors, EU countries’ combined defence spending grew by almost 80 per cent between 2020 and 2025. Production of ammunition is ramping up, new defence programmes are being launched, and countries are pouring more money in their armed forces.
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Yet the ECA found that Europe still faces fragmented national systems, industrial bottlenecks and vulnerable supply chains. In other words, more money does not automatically lead to readiness. Achieving the EU’s defence readiness goal by 2030 – including the ability to independently sustain high-intensity military operations – remains a challenge.
Spending is rising — but readiness lags
Data from the European Defence Agency illustrate this mismatch between resources and outcomes. Between 2023 and 2025, defence investment grew by 75 per cent in real terms, whilst personnel numbers increased by only 3.8 per cent. The EDA warns that the increasing sophistication and complexity of defence equipment risks widening the gap between investment in equipment and the personnel needed to operate it.
Collaborative procurement, encouraged by the EU to help reduce duplication and improve efficiency, accounted for only 24 per cent of defence equipment procurement in 2025.
Overall, national approaches still predominate, with procurement initiatives and equipment life cycles largely out of sync.
Meanwhile, research and development accounted for just 4 per cent of total defence expenditure.
Therefore, the question is no longer just how much the EU is spending on defence, but also whether this spending is providing the necessary capabilities, while being able to sustain its defence efforts in the long term.
Across the EU, defence spending has risen sharply. However, there are considerable differences between individual member states in terms of the proportion of their economies they devote to it.
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Geography and threat perception also shape this contrast, with countries on Europe’s eastern flank generally spending a larger share of their economies on defence, while several southern and western European countries spend less.
Whilst increased spending may help to address Europe’s defence shortfalls – such as replenishing European stockpiles, boosting production and developing capabilities that the EU has lacked for years – hasty procurement can entail a number of risks. One such risk is that rushing to purchase what is needed could increase dependence on suppliers from outside Europe. Another is that the fragmentation of national public procurement markets risks leading to duplication and weakening industrial capacity.
The European Court of Auditors views the current increase in spending as an opportunity to boost the Union’s defence industrial base and reduce dependencies. But achieving this will require more than just larger national budgets: it will also require long-term investment, cooperation and better coordination across the bloc.
The real test of the EU’s defence spending may not be how much more is spent on defence, but what that spending enables the EU to achieve independently.
Thus, when examining the sources of their recent equipment purchases, European states more than tripled their imports of major arms between 2016 and 2020, and between 2021 and 2025, so a 210 per cent increase.
The United States was the main beneficiary, supplying nearly half of these imports to Europe – a figure that rises to as much as 58 per cent for European NATO member states. Meanwhile, only a small proportion of these imports came from other EU member states: around 23 per cent of the total major arms imported into the EU in 2025 were delivered by other Union countries, compared to slightly over 19 per cent in 2022.
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Buying what is needed quickly may mean relying on suppliers outside Europe. However, building a stronger European defence industry requires long-term investment, close cooperation and a commitment to more joint procurement and development.
The EU is already working to address some of these weaknesses. Under the ReArm Europe Plan/Readiness 2030, a €150 billion Security Action for Europe instrument was implemented to support joint defence procurement. This SAFE instrument is designed to pool demand, reduce fragmentation and strengthen European defence industry, while requiring that at least 65 per cent of component costs originate from the EU, Ukraine or eligible EEA/EFTA countries. The aim is to transform European defence procurement from national buying towards pooled demand, which will enable the European defence industry to adapt its production more easily and reduce duplication between national programmes. The broader ‘Readiness 2030’ plan also aims to increase joint procurement and address critical capability gaps by 2030.
The rapid increase in defence spending also raises another question: to what extent are these substantial sums subject to rigorous monitoring and control? In early September 2026, Hanno Pevkur, Estonia’s defence minister, resigned amid criticism of a €70-million contract to supply Ukraine with ammunition, and concerns about defence procurement and financial management. The purchase was funded by the European Peace Facility, and the European Commission is investigating whether Estonia will have to repay the funds.
Europe has more financial resources for defence than it has had for decades. The question is whether this money is being used to produce more ammunition, equipment and deployable forces, or whether it is merely serving to fund more costly national programmes – this at the expense of other investments in different sectors.
- Maria Markus, Euranet Plus News Agency
