Why did Margarita Robles say no to a military vehicle workshop in Barcelona?

MadridWhat would have happened today, in the midst of European and Spanish rearmament, if a workshop for repairing and adapting military vehicles had positioned itself as a candidate to reindustrialize the old Nissan factory in the Free Trade Zone? The project was put on the table in 2021But the Catalan government, then under the leadership of Pere Aragonès, quickly shelved the proposal. This was the official reason given for the failure of the Tess Defence consortium's proposal, which was backed by the Ministry of Industry. Headlines at the time reported that the Catalan government rejected this option, but, as ARA has learned, it was the Minister of Defense herself, Margarita Robles, who had already sealed the fate of that investment in the Zona Franca.

When Nissan's reindustrialization committee received the proposal, Robles's refusal to locate the Tess Defence workshop in Catalonia was firm, which triggered a crisis with the Ministry of Industry, three sources consulted by ARA confirm. From this department, headed by Reyes Maroto and with the Catalan Raül Blanco as deputy, they saw the Tess Defence option—a consortium controlled by Indra, the Basque company Sapa, Escribano, and Santa Bárbara, the Spanish subsidiary of General Dynamics—as the most viable.

Blanco was tasked with bringing the proposal to the table with social partners—he had the support of the unions—and the Catalan government. The Ministry of Industry even attempted to persuade Robles through the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez. However, Sánchez resolved the conflict by siding with the Minister of Defense, sources involved in the disagreement explained to ARA. Sánchez's chief of staff at the time, Oscar López, conveyed to the Ministry of Industry that they absolutely had to back down.

However, Reyes Maroto's team had committed to the social partners to at least put Tess Defence's investment on the table, according to various sources. Faced with this impasse, the rejection by the Catalan government, and in particular by Natàlia Mas, who participated in the meetings as Director General of Industry, was a perfect fit. Without consensus, the military vehicle workshop could not move forward, sources at the ministry indicated at the time, thus closing that chapter.

Different reasons

However, the reasons the Ministry of Defense and the Catalan government had for rejecting Tess Defence were entirely different. Robles, in fact, didn't object to the investment itself, but rather to its location. According to information obtained by ARA, the Minister of Defense wanted the military vehicle repair project to be located in Huelva or Jaén (the latter being the preferred option), not in Catalonia. The underlying reason was to offset the decision to award Córdoba the large army logistics base, which houses a dozen workshops and maintenance centers. This decision had created a conflict for the Ministry of Defense with the other two locations, especially Jaén. Four years later, the project has not only failed to pass through Catalonia, but remains shelved.

However, the Catalan government rejected the consortium because it was an investment directly linked to the military industry, a sector that has historically aroused suspicion in Catalonia. They also cited the Ministry of Business's explanation that the implementation schedule did not align with Nissan's closure (leaving workers without work for a longer period).

Investor frenzy

The truth is that when discussing the military industry in Spain, Catalonia is not the first autonomous community that comes to mind. Pere Ortega, a researcher at the Delàs Center, points out in a conversation with ARA that the Principality's share of the country's military production doesn't even reach 1%.

Catalonia does not host any major factories in the sector, unlike other regions such as Andalusia, the Basque Country, the Community of Madrid, or Galicia. Now, however, the announced public spending on defense—Spain, for example, has committed to reaching 2% of GDP by 2025—is a significant investment. more than 10.4 billion eurosThis is encouraging companies in the sector to invest, and many of them have set their sights on the region. This is also because the government of Salvador Illa is pulling strings "more than ever" to ensure these investments arrive, and is doing so in close coordination with the central government, according to business and union sources. As a result of its commitment to NATO, the Spanish government needs the money to reach the productive sector quickly.

"There's a big pie to be made, and all industries want a piece, [...] including those in Catalonia indirectly," Ortega adds. Thus, while Catalonia isn't exactly a prime location for a large factory or workshop, what's driving interest in some defense investments is the ecosystem of small and medium-sized enterprises in the robotics, technology, and digital sectors, as well as companies linked to research and development (R&D) and even those focused on the so-called "hybrid threats."

In this regard, one of the latest major alliances is that of Indra, a defense company with 28% of its share capital held by the State, and the automotive components company Ficosa to "collaborate on programs and needs within the defense industry." Specifically, Ficosa would develop new vision systems for armored military vehicles. For now, it's just a statement of intent, but as both companies explained, the project would involve developing electro-optical vision and surveillance systems for the VCR 8x8 Dragón and VAC armored military vehicles. In fact, the former are manufactured by the Tess Defence consortium at its Santa Bárbara plant in Asturias. "Companies like Indra, if they want to compete [on a European scale], need this industry to manufacture the components for them," notes the researcher from Delàs.

Beyond Indra, there is the Hyperion Fund investment fund, co-founded by Pablo Casado and in which Ricardo Gómez-Acebo Botín also participates, Ana Botín's nephew is also making moves in Catalonia. In this regard, a significant injection of funds into the... start-up Catalan company Sateliot, which seeks to position itself as the first satellite telecommunications operator for the Internet of Things (IoT) with 5G coverage. This investment is in addition to another outlay for the Catalan firm Gutmar, dedicated to precision technology.