Europe's navies are being rebuilt at a pace not seen since the Cold War. EU defence spending reached €418 billion in 2025, a 20% jump from the previous year, and is projected to hit €454 billion in 2026, equivalent to 2.4% of GDP. Maritime defence is among the fastest-growing segments, with production of naval vehicles and equipment across the bloc totalling €117.8 billion since 2016, including €13.7 billion in 2025 alone.
Four countries dominate the industrial base
On paper, the picture is clear: France, Germany, Italy and Spain account for 87% of the EU's maritime defence industrial base and captured 82% of its total output value last year. France alone produced 37% of the bloc's maritime defence vehicles in 2025, followed by Germany and Italy at 19% each, and Spain at 8%. Together, these four also account for 60% of the EU's total defence expenditure.
For Christophe Tytgat, Secretary General of SEA Europe, the shipyards and maritime equipment association, this concentration is no accident. “The concentration is real and structural, not incidental,” he said, pointing to decades of naval-industrial history and geography that have clustered shipbuilding and submarine expertise in a handful of states. Submarines are now 27% of EU maritime defence output, with the same four countries producing 93% of the bloc's naval exports.
A skewed picture of commitment
But industrial output is not the same as military commitment, argues Chris Kremidas-Courtney, senior advisor at the European Policy Centre. He says the four-country narrative overlooks some of Europe's most exposed navies. “Industrial concentration is not the same as maritime-defence commitment,” he said, naming Greece and Sweden as “conspicuous omissions.”
Greece operates one of Europe's strongest conventional submarine fleets and maintains a demanding operational posture across the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea. Sweden's smaller navy is purpose-built for the Baltic and backed by a serious domestic defence industry. Both countries, he argues, demonstrate that strategic value is not measured by production volume alone.
The real test, Kremidas-Courtney says, is integration rather than size. “Europe doesn't need everyone to build a fleet to match Italy or France, but it does need credible distributed forces connected by interoperable systems and a shared maritime picture.” That approach, he insists, must extend beyond the EU to include the UK and Norway, whose navies are vital to the security of the North Atlantic and the Norwegian Sea.
Frontline states lead in GDP terms
Measured against GDP rather than raw output, the map shifts eastward. Poland spends the largest share of any EU state on defence at 4.48% of GDP, ahead of Lithuania (4.00%), Latvia (3.73%) and Estonia (3.38%) – all frontline states bordering Russia or its ally Belarus. Germany has more than doubled its defence share of GDP since 2021, from 1.27% to 2.14%, and aims to reach €162 billion in annual spending by 2029.
Tytgat argues that neither the industrial giants nor the frontline states can carry EU maritime security alone. “Only four EU countries cannot substitute for broad-based EU maritime security, because collective security strategy requires interoperable capability, resilient supply chains and genuine burden-sharing across the whole Union,” he said.
What is driving the spending
The immediate catalyst is Russia's war on Ukraine and the maritime threats that have followed. A “shadow fleet” of sanctioned tankers, allegedly used for surveillance and sabotage, has put the EU on alert. A series of undersea cable cuts in the Baltic Sea – including the BCS East-West Interlink, C-Lion1 and Estlink 2 incidents in late 2024 – pushed Brussels to adopt a Cable Security Action Plan in 2025, alongside NATO's “Baltic Sentry” naval patrol mission.
The EU revised its Maritime Security Strategy in 2023. The previous strategy focused on “piracy, illegal fishing, migration flows”; the updated one is built to confront state-based threats, Tytgat explains. But he warns the current strategy lacks teeth: “The tools have multiplied, but the financing and governance architecture to actually translate the strategy into tangible action is still lacking.”
EU funding: a first step, but far from enough
Brussels is trying to close the gap through several channels. A Commission subsea infrastructure package announced in February 2026 carries €347 million, alongside a separate €92 million ocean-observation initiative launched mid-2026. Tytgat calls both “a first step,” but says the sums are “far from enough if the EU wants to face the daily threats it deals with appropriately.”
Other instruments include the €150 billion SAFE loan facility under the “Readiness 2030” roadmap, the European Defence Fund (68.4% of which has gone to France, Germany, Italy and Spain), and PESCO's joint shipbuilding projects, including the Italian-led European Patrol Corvette. In March 2026, the EU also launched an Industrial Maritime Strategy, folding shipbuilding into a bloc-wide industrial framework for the first time, and earmarked €325 million for naval and undersea defence projects.
The real test for burden-sharing will come when the European Commission releases its progress report on the maritime strategy in October 2026. For now, Tytgat says the EU should focus on ensuring it has “the necessary tools and investment to meet the current challenges it faces in its vicinities but also in all global chokepoints that create threats to the EU's security of supply, trade and economy.”
As Europe's navies expand, the debate is shifting from who builds the most ships to who can best contribute to a credible, interoperable maritime defence. The answer, as analysts point out, lies not in a single industrial champion but in a network of capable forces – from the Baltic to the Mediterranean – linked by shared systems and a common strategic vision.
