Europe’s Defence Overruns, Measured
Measuring Europe’s Defence Cost Escalation Through Public Audit Records
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.
This report builds a Defence Overrun Evidence Index from courts of auditors, parliamentary records and official programme reports. It separates the evidence problem from the overrun problem, then analyses the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the EU level according to what their public records actually allow the analyst to measure. The report distinguishes programme-level cost growth, unit-cost escalation driven by quantity cuts, schedule slippage, portfolio affordability pressure and disclosure quality, showing where Europe’s defence escalation can be ranked, where it can only be contextualised, and why audit visibility is itself a strategic asset for ministries, primes, investors and public-control institutions.