Ángel Escribano: ‘Spain now has the opportunity to promote a strong and autonomous defence industry’

Ángel Escribano, executive chairman of Indra Group, participated in the round table discussion ‘Investment opportunities in defence, cybersecurity and biosecurity in Spain,’ held as part of the 16th edition of Spain Investors Day (SID), a leading forum that brings together the main players in the Spanish economy every year — members of the government's economic team, regulatory bodies, 42 large listed companies and more than 200 international investors—and which has established itself as the starting point for the economic year in Spain.

The panel included Margarita Robles, Minister of Defence; Íñigo Fernández de Mesa, Vice-President of CEOE; Isabel Gómez Cagigas, General Manager of Cybersecurity Services Europe, Middle East & Africa at IBM; and Cristina Henríquez de Luna, President and CEO of GSK Spain. The session was moderated by Ricardo de Querol, Director of Cinco Días and Deputy Director of Economic Information at El País.

During his speech, Escribano pointed out that the defence sector is undergoing a period of profound transformation due to growing geopolitical threats. In this context, he insisted that ‘we must continue to invest in defence and security in order to be fully prepared, and we must do so now’.

The executive president highlighted that Spain has a solid industry and technological base, fully capable of producing the equipment the country needs. She stressed that Spain ‘is not technologically behind,’ but rather ‘behind in deciding to take advantage of its capabilities,’ and that the approval of the Special Modernisation Programmes (SMP) opens a unique window of opportunity.

Escribano explained that one of the critical elements is to ensure the national production of strategic systems to reduce vulnerabilities: Spanish industry ‘is capable of doing this,’ he said, recalling that for years systems were purchased outside Spain or even outside allied countries, which increased foreign dependence.

He also highlighted Indra's role as a driving force in the industrial ecosystem: Indra acts as a ‘major driving force in the Spanish industrial fabric’, capable of boosting the entire value chain and helping the country to develop its own capabilities.

The president of Indra concluded that the challenge at the moment is to consolidate national industrial leadership in defence, and that Indra is working closely with the Ministry of Defence and the sector as a whole to achieve this.