Murtra (Telefónica) claims the defense industry: "It is relevant for democracy"

BarcelonaThe executive chairman of Telefónica, Marc Murtra, has championed the importance of the defense industry before Catalan business leaders. The chief executive of the major Spanish telecommunications company, also former chairman of the industry giant Indra, asserted that "all democratic countries must have a relevant defense industry." At a meeting with Catalan business leaders organized by the employers' association Foment del Treball, which served to inaugurate the economic year in Barcelona, Murtra stated that building defensive capabilities is "especially relevant for democracy," since democratic countries "are recipients of aggression."

In the executive's view, security must be "a society's first priority," even above wealth creation. In this sense, he asserted that Europe, and all its regions, needs "its own industrial capabilities" to avoid external dependencies. In the Catalan sphere, historically resistant to investments in defense, he demanded that this sector be defended "without any kind of complex." "If we are democrats and we want democracy, we need a defense industry," he argued; even more so given the historical capacity of military advances to offer civilian utilities. Dual use, in fact, becomes a driver of economic growth: "All industrial hubs in the world have an important origin in defense."

Not having one's own strategic industries, the president of Telefónica warned, opens up significant gaps in any social project. "It is extraordinarily dangerous for Europe to depend on non-European critical technologies," he declared. Among other things, he highlighted satellite connectivity, a technological segment in which Catalonia is gaining significant weight.

In Murtra's eyes, Europe must develop "its own constellation of satellites" so as not to be tied hand and foot to the decisions of a foreign company, as is currently the case with the absolute dominance that Elon Musk's Starlink has in this market. "Musk can decide whether or not Ukraine has access to satellites," the businessman warned; a dependency that would not exist with powerful local providers for this type of critical infrastructure.

AI, the fastest disruption

Beyond defense, Murtra, who has presided over Telefónica since January 2025, highlighted the changes that artificial intelligence is bringing to the technology market: "I have been in the world of technology for 30 years, and I had never seen an impact as rapid as the one AI has." He also foresees an unprecedented advance at the moment when the use of quantum computing becomes widespread, which, in his view, will lead to "a disruption equivalent" to the one currently being registered around artificial intelligence.

Just as in the field of defense, Murtra considers it essential that the European Union be capable of developing these technologies with unforeseen potential autonomously. "Europe must have an LLM, must have cloud computing capacity, quantum, its own search engines... We must have autonomy in different areas," he demanded. To do so, he aligned himself with the readings of the European environment provided by documents such as theLetta and Draghi reports, although he encouraged those present to "move from diagnosis to action".

Catalans in the Ibex

Before the attending business leaders, the president of Foment del Treball, Josep Sánchez Llibre, endorsed Murtra's intervention and lamented the time during which "Catalonia has lived with its back to the defense industry." In this sense, he pointed out the importance of guaranteeing Catalan presence in the business leadership of the Spanish state. "We need Catalan presidents in the Spanish Ibex," the leader of Foment declared. Also, however, to maintain the decision-making centers of its key industries in the Principality, with Catalan companies that remain there or foreign investments that commit to it.