European defence production can require assets that no single participant is ready to combine within a procurement timetable. A manufacturer may possess the relevant technology but lack the required production location; another may be able to establish a factory while lacking the rights needed to manufacture the specified product. Cooperation can connect those resources and support an offer that would otherwise remain unavailable. It can also determine who may compete for later orders, which suppliers can serve alternative bidders and how long the original participants remain dependent on one another. The scale at which this operates is visible in the buyer’s own record: the German defence ministry reports approximately €1.3 billion approved for several hundred thousand 155 mm projectiles, within a framework contemplating several million and without naming a supplier, while a second framework for the same calibre was announced by Rheinmetall with a gross value of up to €8.5 billion. Against magnitudes of that order, the structural issue is the relationship between the industrial capability created by an agreement and the competitive freedom surrendered to make that capability possible. Both affect the durability of European supply, although they operate through different contractual and institutional mechanisms. What remains unresolved is when the second is the price of the first, and when it is merely charged alongside it.