Defence Finance Monitor #135
Defence Finance Monitor applies a top–down method that traces how NATO, EU and allied strategic priorities are translated into regulations, funding lines and procurement programmes, and then into demand for specific capabilities, technologies and companies. We use official doctrine as the organising frame to identify where strategic relevance is being institutionally defined and where it is materialising in concrete budgets, acquisition pathways and industrial capacity.
Our working assumption is that what becomes structurally relevant in NATO/EU strategy tends, over time, to become relevant also from a financial and industrial point of view. On this basis, DFM operates as a decision-support tool: it benchmarks investment and industrial choices against institutional demand, clarifies which capabilities are rising on the spending agenda, and maps the funding instruments, eligibility constraints and supply-chain factors that shape real-world feasibility across investors, industry, public authorities and research organisations.
Public Expenditure & Procurement
Analysis of the EIB Group Security and Defence Policy 2026–2028
The EIB Group’s 2026–2028 Operational Plan marks a structural break with four decades of self-imposed constraints, repositioning the Bank as a central financial actor in Europe’s security and defence ecosystem rather than a peripheral enabler of dual-use spillovers. What is decisive is not only the headline expansion of eligibility to pure military projects, but the way security and defence are embedded as a transversal policy objective that reshapes risk appetite, instrument choice, speed of execution, and capital mobilisation across the Group. Defence Finance Monitor’s analysis unpacks how this shift alters the financing logic for defence infrastructure, space assets, cyber capabilities, and industrial scale-up, and why the interaction between EIB lending, EIF venture instruments, and EU budgetary guarantees is becoming a de facto backbone of Europe’s defence-industrial strategy. The result is a materially different investment environment, with direct implications for companies, supply chains, and investors operating at the intersection of security, technology, and industrial policy.
Defence Investment Regulation
Regulatory Framework and Selection Logic of the EU STEP Sovereignty Seal
The STEP Sovereignty Seal is increasingly functioning as a capital-allocation instrument rather than a symbolic label: it converts a regulatory definition of “strategic” into a pre-screened pipeline that can be financed, syndicated, and accelerated across multiple EU envelopes. What matters in practice is not only which sectors are covered, but how the Seal reshapes eligibility logic, de-risking mechanisms, and cumulative funding pathways by embedding TRL maturity, supply-chain sovereignty, and security-by-design into a single institutional decision rule. Defence Finance Monitor’s analysis dissects this logic in operational terms, tracing how the Seal is applied across digital, clean-tech, biotech, and defence-relevant domains, and how it effectively links EU regulation, programme evaluation, and investment readiness into a coherent selection architecture. The result is a clearer view of which projects are being structurally elevated within Europe’s industrial strategy, and why this matters for actors exposed to defence, dual-use, and strategic technologies.
Public Expenditure & Procurement
Strengthening Continental Autonomy: The “European Priority” in the €90 Billion Ukraine Support Package
The €90 billion Ukraine support package for 2026–2027 marks a turning point in how the European Union translates geopolitical commitment into industrial and financial architecture. What is at stake is not only the scale of the assistance, but the introduction of a binding “European priority” that reshapes procurement hierarchies, conditions market access, and channels a large share of EU-guaranteed capital back into the continental defence-industrial base. Defence Finance Monitor’s analysis examines how this mechanism operates in practice: how legal bases, loan structures, derogations, and conditional access rules combine to turn emergency support into a tool of long-term industrial alignment, with direct implications for European manufacturers, non-EU suppliers, and the future design of EU defence financing. The package functions less as ad-hoc aid and more as a template for integrating security assistance, industrial policy, and strategic autonomy under a single financial framework.
Company Profiles Database
Defence Finance Monitor continues to expand its proprietary database of over 1200 company profiles, focusing on enterprises that actively contribute to the defence and technological priorities of European, NATO, and allied countries. Each profile is developed using the DFM Strategic-Technological Analysis Framework, assessing how companies align with key objectives—strategic autonomy, technological sovereignty, and cross-border interoperability.
The database highlights firms that reduce dependencies on non-allied suppliers, reinforce industrial resilience, and support interoperable capabilities essential to credible deterrence, force modernisation, and long-term defence planning. It provides a decision-oriented resource for tracking how industrial actors position themselves within the evolving defence ecosystem of liberal democracies.
Recent additions concentrate on European defence and dual-use actors with relevance to space communications, unmanned aerial systems, secure networks, propulsion, simulation and training, avionics, sustainment, power electronics, infrastructure monitoring, personal protection, and CBRN capabilities. These include strategic-industrial profiles of Tesat-Spacecom in space-based optical communications; C-Astral Aerospace in fixed-wing UAVs for ISR and dual-use applications; Svarmi in aerial data automation and distributed sensing architectures; HYON AS in hydrogen refuelling solutions for maritime and land-based platforms; Site S.p.A. in secure communications and critical infrastructure integration; Antycip Simulation in advanced defence simulation and training technologies; Next-AT SA in aviation maintenance training and technical support; Nethix S.r.l. in remote industrial IoT systems for infrastructure monitoring; ASE S.p.A. in power conversion systems for aerospace and defence platforms; Logic S.p.A. in integrated avionics for fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft; Revision Military (European branch) in personal protection systems for allied forces; AEREA S.p.A. in advanced aeronautical manufacturing and defence platform integration; Cristanini S.p.A. in CBRN decontamination systems; and Steatite Ltd in tactical communications and power systems for deployed defence environments.
Access to the full Company Profiles Database is reserved for DFM subscribers.
Without a structured map of the linkages between doctrine, budget and capacity, strategy remains abstract, capital remains misallocated, and industrial readiness remains reactive rather than deliberate.