Greece's Ministry of National Economy and Finance published remarks by Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis at the Athens Defence Summit arguing that Europe needs to convert rising defence budgets into operational capability by mobilising capital faster, removing investment barriers for defence companies and using joint procurement more systematically. He framed the main bottleneck as execution rather than the availability of budgetary appropriations. The speech says Europe's defence industrial base remains fragmented, geared to peacetime production and underfinanced relative to current order books, while procurement cycles still take years and many suppliers, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, struggle to obtain bank finance because defence is still treated as an excluded sector by many institutional investors. It argues that the Savings and Investments Union should channel European savings into defence and dual-use production, that regulatory frameworks which block defence investment should be reconsidered, and that common European procurement, multi-year contracts, common specifications and a genuine single market for defence goods are needed to give industry predictable demand and avoid fragmented purchasing that raises prices without increasing capability. SAFE, EDIP and the work of the Defence Commissioner were cited as tools that are starting to emerge, with political will and fiscal discipline presented as necessary to use them at the required scale and attract private capital rather than replace it.

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