Blow to the Secretary of State for Defence for her lack of answers in Congress
The Secretary of State for Defence, Amparo Valcarce, has appeared before a depleted Congressional Defence Committee to report on the status of the Special Modernisation Programmes, explain the recent creation of the Directorate General for Defence Industry Strategy and Innovation, and report on the status of the 8x8 Dragon Wheeled Combat Vehicle programme.
The Congress hall was practically empty. Of a total of 53 members of parliament that make up the Defence Commission, there were just over half a dozen PSOE members present, slightly fewer from the PP and only the spokespeople from Vox, Unión del Pueblo Navarro, Sumar and the Republican parliamentary group.
The spokespeople for the Partido Popular, Agustín Conde; for Vox, General Alberto Asarta; and for Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN), Alberto Catalán, received Amparo Valcarce, pointing out that this was her second appearance ‘in two years and seven months’. The UPN MP even said ironically that he ‘thought she had declared herself insubordinate and we almost had to declare her wanted and captured in order to get her to appear’.
The PP MP, Agustín Conde, welcomed the Secretary of State exclaiming ‘it's about time’ and reproaching her for the fact that ‘almost exactly a year and a half’ has passed since the beginning of the legislature and ‘this is the first time she has appeared in this Congress and the second since she was appointed to a senior position in the Ministry of Defence’.
The Secretary of State took the floor to offer a review of the so-called Special Modernisation Programmes and to affirm that the defence industry contributes to the territorial structuring of Spain. But in the spokespeople's question time she did not give any explanation to most of the questions, not even to the question of the UPN deputy about the ‘distribution of jobs by Autonomous Community’. Nor did she take the trouble to indicate that in those questions to which he had no answer, he would send a written reply to those concerned.
Delays and cost overruns of the VCR 8x8 Dragón
The situation of delays and cost overruns of the VCR 8x8 has been the focus of the dialectic between the parties that are looking closely at the weapons systems acquisition programmes. General Asarta has described the Dragon as ‘the Army's star programme’, intended to replace the BMRs with more than 40 years of service, which have shown ‘very significant shortcomings in terms of personnel protection and firepower’.
He explained that 17 years ago the Council of Ministers authorised its acquisition ‘as a matter of urgency and with a manufacturing plan of 545 vehicles’. But due to the constant budget cuts suffered by the Ministry of Defence, delays, rescheduling and cost overruns, ‘the initial 2.1 billion euros have become 2.5 billion... but the vehicles have still not arrived’.
And this despite the fact that ‘four months ago’ representatives of TESS ‒a temporary joint venture formed by Santa Bárbara, Indra, SAPA and Escribano and the main contractor for the VCR‒ informed the Defence Commission that there were ‘25 vehicles ready for delivery, but that they had not yet been certified’. Alberto Asarta has asked the Secretary of State to ‘take the necessary measures to ensure that the production process of the 8x8 in all its versions does not experience any further delays’.
On the subject of the 8x8, the PP spokesman, Agustín Conde, has reviewed its progress. He emphasised that the original contract has been modified by the Ministry of Defence ‘no less than three times’ and that, in his view, the contract to manufacture 348 vehicles for 2.1 billion euros ‘was awarded by hand’ to the TESS consortium. He pointed out that the government had committed in October 2021 to make advance payments totalling 1.208 billion, ‘which it has already done’, and that in April 2022 the cost of the programme was increased by 420 million euros, ‘20 percent, which brings the price to 2.5 billion’.
Agustín Conde said that, according to the latest modifications, 91 vehicles should have been delivered by 31 December and, like Alberto Asarta, he asked, ‘Where are the vehicles?’ He concluded that the problem with the delays in the VCR is that the programme ‘is a failure’, that it is ‘overweight and lacks firepower’ and he asked Amparo Valcarce to ‘consider putting an end to the programme and reorienting the second and third phases with a more suitable vehicle, giving opportunities to more companies’.
He did not answer anything at all
She emphasised that ‘we have been asking for more than a year for a report on current armament programmes, agreed equipment delivery and payment deadlines and instalments paid’. And that we be provided with the Defence Investment Pledge, the document that the Secretary of State for Defence must send to NATO every year, updated every six months, reporting on the timetable for financing the defence of Spain to reach the 2 per cent target.
Conde has stated that his parliamentary group has also been requesting the delivery of the reports that justified ‘the urgent procurement of armaments for several billion euros while the government was in office in 2023’ for ‘more than a year’. Due to the lack of answers, he has accused Valcarce of ‘lack of transparency, non-compliance with regulations and obscurantism in the awarding of contracts’.
The former Secretary of State for Defence between November 2016 and June 2018 has criticised Amparo Valcarce for having ‘almost completely eliminated’ tenders, auctions or negotiated procedures for the award of arms contracts, thus restricting ‘public competition, transparency, the comparison of bids to obtain the best, the most efficient and the cheapest’, which, in Conde's opinion, has been replaced ‘by favouritism, arbitrariness and cronyism’.
The Vox spokesman asked whether it is the will of the Executive ‘to maintain the capacity for a fixed wing aircraft that can be embarked by the Navy’ and, if so, to know ‘why the procedures to acquire the F-35B fighter jets have not been initiated’. He also asked about the ‘reasons for the changes in the milestones and stages that justify so many reschedulings and the increase in the spending ceiling’ for the A400M transport aircraft, the Maritime Action Vessel for Underwater Intervention and the modernisation of the Tiger combat helicopter. All he got in response was silence.
After Valcarce's second intervention, the UPN deputy emphasised that ‘you have not answered any of the specific questions that have been put to you and, therefore, I will continue to insist on the lack of transparency and information with which you act’. Agustín Conde took a similar line, saying that ‘when you know little about the matter, you have to look for some kind of loophole’, but that ‘you cannot come to this committee and not answer anything at all of what has been asked’.
