A few days ago we learned that Portugal was one of the first eight countries to have its investment plan approved in SAFE, the European program through which we will purchase 5.8 billion euros in military material through loans under so-called “favorable” conditions. We will get there under “favorable” conditions.
First let’s get to the good. In fact, Portugal is getting better and better at putting together everything needed to convince Brussels to send the check. In this case, a first installment of 876 million.
Portugal formalized its candidacy for the program in November 2025, and presented eligible projects to the Commission in two categories: the first concerns ammunition, missiles, artillery systems, land combat capabilities, drones and cyber defense. The second covers anti-missile and air defense, naval capabilities, space assets and Artificial Intelligence.
The two most notable purchases under this program, for now, are three frigates from Italian Fincantieri (worth three billion euros) and the rehabilitation of almost 200 Pandur armored vehicles (a contract estimated by the government at 280 million euros).
Upon joining the program, in November, the Minister of Defense, Nuno Melo, said that “there is no mystery” regarding “transparency” in the application of public resources. In fact, there was. In fact, there still is.
It has been known from the beginning that the rules of this program (perhaps for the sake of speed) involve direct adjustments with suppliers, rather than public tenders. It’s the regulation. But this does not exempt the Government, namely the Minister of Defense, from making public – which is to say, informing the taxpayers who will pay for all this – who are the members of the group of experts who advised him to opt for this or that company, be it Portuguese, Italian, French or another.
On the other hand, most of the communication made about the Portuguese SAFE program – which, I remember, amounts to 5.8 billion – referred to loans “under favorable conditions”.
So, to be clear: these are not European funds, as we are used to in the Multiannual Frameworks, nor support under the Recovery and Resilience Program (which mainly involves non-refundable grants).
Here, at SAFE, we are talking about loans with terms of up to 45 years (i.e., paying until 2071) and which, depending on how quickly Portugal wanted to receive the money, could cost at least more than 6 billion euros in interest.
Calculations by journalist Luís Leitão, in Eco, even show that, in the most plausible scenario, the Portuguese will have to pay 12.1 billion euros until the end of the credit’s maturity (of which more than half of this is interest). In other words, pay 209 euros for every 100 euros ordered. It is for this reason, but also because almost all military purchases in Portugal were controversial, including precisely the Pandur ones that are now being modernized, that taxpayers have the right to know more and better about this entire process.
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