In recent days, Pedro Sánchez has held meetings at La Moncloa with companies from the aerospace, telecommunications, security, defense sectors, as well as with executives from the Spanish cybersecurity sector. During the meetings, in addition to exchanging views, the Government, according to sources familiar with the meetings, has shown interest in the investments and projects that these companies, many of them leading, have underway or in the pipeline, in order to assess which ones could contribute to increasing the Defense spending bill that Spain must present to NATO in the coming weeks.
The importance given to these meetings at La Moncloa is highlighted by the presence of Manuel de la Rocha, Director of the Economic Affairs Office at La Moncloa, as well as the Ministers of Economy, Industry, Digital Transformation, or Defense, depending on the companies invited each day.
The Government opts for caution and information containment regarding these meetings. Little information, few clues. "The importance of advancing towards technological sovereignty, launching training projects, and strengthening the industrial fabric and territorial cohesion, creating resilient ecosystems and value chains has been emphasized," they limit to say.
In this round, Government representatives, as informed sources have stated, emphasized to the executives the need and importance for projects and investments to pay special attention to professional training, job creation... In short, that the investments made translate into training and qualified jobs. Additionally, Sánchez conveyed the "commitment to strengthening public-private collaboration."
This aspect is key. Having a detailed knowledge of the list of projects and plans of companies linked to the security sector allows the Government to know which initiatives are eligible to be counted by NATO as military spending, which investments the Government can promote to be reflected in the picture that the Alliance will see of Spanish investment in Defense.
Diplomatic sources confirm that the Government is speeding up a new military spending schedule that could be presented between April or May and, most certainly, will be known before the significant NATO summit to be held in The Hague. In Brussels, it is already suggested that at that meeting, a new target of 3% or even 3.5% of GDP could be set, which only explains the Government's desire to reach that moment with a figure as close to 2% as possible. Due to the pressures received from Europe, the Alliance, and the US, and also because the closer it is to 2%, the less theoretical distance it will have to the new target.
Furthermore, the Government's movements align with what was hinted at last week by NATO Secretary-General, Mark Rutte. The former Prime Minister of the Netherlands anticipated from Poland that Spain wanted to reach 2% before summer, a point that was later denied by the Government and which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization also clarified by pointing out that they were not entirely aware of the sensitivities within the Government regarding this issue.
What is whispered in the European capital is that the Secretary-General may already be aware of the Government's objectives, including the desire to expand the definition of Defense and be able to count expenditures such as those allocated to counterterrorism, border control, or cybersecurity. Thus, the Government is confident that the relative military investment figure would take a very significant leap.
Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, emphasized on Tuesday that they will reach that 2% figure "well before 2029." "I believe that well in advance, before 2029, we will meet our obligations (...) we are working on it seriously and rigorously," she stated from Lisbon in remarks reported by Reuters.