The world is moving towards a scenario where war is a real possibility and a new push for the defense industry. And companies don’t want to waste the opportunities this new reality presents. Catalonia’s employers’ association, Fomento del Trebor, has been promoting recent meetings in Brussels with the European Parliament, the European Commission and even NATO in order to offer the business and industrial capabilities that exist in Catalonia in the face of European and Spanish defense plans. Josep Sánchez Libre, president of the Employers’ Association, led the meeting to urge Catalonia to play an appropriate role in the European Investment Program, which aims to give the European Union strategic autonomy in terms of security. To achieve this objective, Fomento announced this Wednesday that it will promote the presence of companies that can absorb 20% of the annual investments that Spain plans to spend, or 2 billion euros per year.
Fomento’s visit to Brussels had several objectives, one of which was to meet with former Generalitat president Carles Puigdemont in the wake of Juntz’s decision to block Pedro Sánchez from congress.
Beyond this meeting, Mr. Fomento’s talks with the European Agency and NATO served to offer the potential of Catalan industry “with high technical and technological capabilities, innovative and highly qualified technicians, and to exploit dual-use technologies in areas such as communication and navigation systems, unmanned vehicles, or the auto parts industry, which provides transport and intervention vehicles to the defense industry,” according to a statement from the employers’ association.
This movement comes from two sources. One is from the European Commission’s desire to develop a stronger defense industry, which would allow it to have greater autonomy with respect to security. This was imposed as an emergency, especially since the start of the war in Ukraine due to Russian aggression. Second, US President Donald Trump is pressuring NATO members to increase investment in defense. In the latter case, President Trump’s rebuke of the Pedro Sánchez administration stands out as the only government to refuse to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP as requested by the US president.
Overall, the government is committed to increasing defense spending and believes the 2% target planned by NATO and Brussels is achievable, but this means a range of companies will have to fulfill public investments and contracts. Last March, the government approved the Industrial Technology Action Plan for Security and Defence, which Fomento recalls calls for an annual investment of 10 billion euros. Employers are demanding that 20% of this investment (roughly equal to the weight of Spain’s autonomous communities in terms of population and GDP) be in Catalonia, or 2 billion euros a year. The hub promoted by Fomento will be a means of directing these investments to Catalan companies in this sector. “We want Catalonia to actively participate in building a safer, more innovative and industrially stronger Europe,” the group said.
Fomento recently used his visit to Brussels to demand that Brussels not impose tariffs on Bangladesh, saying they would affect Catalan textile companies with production sites in the Asian country.
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