Kongsberg Signs NOK 10 Billion of NASAMS for Belgium — the Dutch Procurement Authority Buys on Belgium's Behalf
Kongsberg, 29 September 2026
Key points
- Kongsberg said on 29 September it had signed a contract worth NOK 10 billion, about EUR 0.9 billion, for the delivery of NASAMS to Belgium; the counterparty is "the Armed Forces procurement authority of the Netherlands", procuring on Belgium's behalf, and the end user is the Belgian Air Force. Kongsberg filed it on the Oslo exchange as inside information
- The release gives no unit count, delivery date or Belgian signatory. At the NATO summit in Ankara in July, Belgium signed a cooperation agreement with the Netherlands for a multi-layered air-defence purchase "that would include 10 NASAMS systems"
- The same day Kongsberg signed about NOK 1.5 billion with the Netherlands to expand the 2024 CITADEL programme, several NOMADS short-range systems plus NASAMS increases, and a contract with Oshkosh Defense Europe for PROTECTOR RS4 remote weapon stations with a counter-drone fit for Dutch JLTVs, value undisclosed
- Belgium's July package, as reported, ran to about EUR 3.1 billion: ten NASAMS, Thales GM200 radars, 20 Rheinmetall Skyranger 30 and command vehicles. No contract for the Skyranger has been reported
Belgium has bought its first ground-based air defence in two decades through another country's procurement agency, and the NASAMS contract is the first of the package's several parts to be signed.
Theo Francken, the defence minister, set the terms in July: "After twenty years without one, Belgium will rebuild its own powerful air defense capability with this joint purchase." Joint, in practice, means Dutch. The Netherlands already operates NASAMS, holds the CITADEL contract with Kongsberg, and is the legal buyer of Belgium's systems; the end user is the Belgian Air Force, whose air-defence training and maintenance the March basing plan put at Ursel. No Belgian ministry statement accompanied the signing.
The contract's value is the useful figure. In October 2025, when the two countries agreed in principle, Belgian reporting put the cost at about EUR 250 million a battery. NOK 10 billion is about EUR 0.9 billion for ten systems, well short of that, which suggests the contract covers the launcher and fire-control end and that other pieces are bought elsewhere: the GM200 radars from Thales Nederland, and the missiles. NASAMS fires the AIM-120 AMRAAM, and Belgium and the Netherlands are both on the USD 20.7 billion multi-year Raytheon ceiling awarded on 25 September.
Belgium's air defence is being assembled from at least three supply lines, Kongsberg's launchers, Thales's radars and Raytheon's missiles, through a Dutch purchasing desk, and only the first is under contract. That is a fast route to a capability Belgium has lacked since its Hawk batteries were retired; the price is that every part of it reaches Belgium through another government's contract. The next documents are a Skyranger contract and Belgium's AMRAAM lot. Signal No. 157 recorded the signing beside the Kaliningrad non-paper; the AMRAAM award is the subject of Großwald's dispatch of 28 September.
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