Since the British referendum result in June 2016 and the US election in November, greater political effort has been be channelled into ways of increasing EU defence cooperation, and creating a solid European defence industry. The EU’s toolbox includes a number of existing means of doing so, many made available by the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 – European defence policy comprises a series of policy measures related to a Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), a Single Market for defence equipment, the European Defence and Technological Industrial Base (EDITB) and offsets. But in a constrained budgetary context, it is difficult to overlook defence economics as a driver of European defence policy. This paper suggests a number of avenues for efficiency improvements in European defence spending.[...]