A German Eurofighter Typhoon takes off during the "Blue Flag" multinational aerial exercise | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images EU capitals missing targets on collaborative defense spending European agency boss sees ‘worrying fall.’

EU countries are failing to meet their own targets for coordinated military spending on everything from procurement to research, the European Defence Agency said in a report out Monday.

Jorge Domecq, the EDA’s chief executive, said there had been a “worrying fall” in joint equipment procurement and research spending, while noting that collaborative research and technology project investment between EU countries was “significantly below 2008 levels.”

That's despite overall defense spending returning to near pre-financial crisis levels in 2018, although some big countries such as Germany remain under pressure for not meeting NATO's target of 2 percent of GDP.

The EDA said total aggregated spending for 27 EU countries — minus Denmark which opts out of the EU agency — stood at €223 billion in 2018, some 3 percent up on the previous year and the fifth consecutive overall annual increase.

But capitals fell short of their own self-imposed 2007 targets for so-called spending calibration benchmarks. For example, while countries had agreed to invest 35 percent of their total equipment procurement in cooperation with other EU countries, in reality the figure was 17.8 percent in 2018 — way beneath the 2011 peak of 24 percent.

Meanwhile, the €153 million member countries spent on research and technology projects in 2018 is just a third of the total spent in 2008, according to the figures which are compiled from national defense ministry submissions.

The European Commission is setting up a European Defence Fund, meant to foster collaboration between EU countries in defense research and development. The size of the fund will depend on broader negotiations over the bloc's next long-term budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework.