In its October 2026 notification under the excessive deficit procedure, Finland reported a “time adjustment of military expenditures” of €1.487 billion for 2025. The item reconciles the central government’s budgetary balance with its deficit as measured in the national accounts, and the April notification had put it at €1.756 billion. The figure points to a feature of Europe’s rearmament that defence budgets, procurement announcements and deficit ratios do not show on their own: the same purchase does not become public expenditure, public borrowing and military capability at the same moment. A government can authorise a programme, sign a contract, transfer cash to a supplier and borrow to finance that transfer years before the equipment counts as government expenditure under the European System of Accounts. Conversely, equipment can become government expenditure before the final invoice has been paid. The gap matters more when governments pay large advances on multi-year orders for aircraft, armoured vehicles, air-defence systems and other capital-intensive equipment, because a single contract can then move cash, debt and the deficit in different years. The resulting fiscal profile cannot be read from a defence budget, a contract announcement or a deficit ratio in isolation. The question is how the same purchase travels through budget authority, cash, financial assets, gross debt, economic ownership and delivery, and how much of that path can be reconstructed from public accounts before the equipment enters service.