EDIP–SAFE–STEP as a Single Eligibility Architecture
Europe’s defence market is becoming an institutional market: contracts, funding and scale are increasingly determined by legal eligibility, supply-chain constraints and sovereignty rules, not by generic claims of technological excellence. This article explains how three instruments—EDIP, SAFE and STEP—work together as a single selection architecture that determines which firms can reliably access EU-backed procurement and de-risking mechanisms. It clarifies the concrete tests that matter: where a company is established and managed, who controls it, how its bill of materials is composed, and whether its design authority is free from external restrictions. It also separates what is binding from what is merely aspirational, and shows where the law allows transitional pathways and where it does not.