The government of Aragon opens the doors of Zaragoza to the defence industry
- Creating an ecosystem around the defence industry
- Large technological multinationals are already betting on Zaragoza
The government of Aragon has decided to take advantage of the strengths that have been before its eyes for decades and to make a firm commitment to attract technological industries from the defence, security and aerospace sectors to the geographical environment of Zaragoza.
The regional executive headed by the 51-year-old lawyer Jorge Azcón has just put on the table an ambitious strategic project called the Defence Logistics and Industrial Hub. With its creation, it aspires to give life to an ecosystem capable of bringing innovative companies to the fore, producing new technological contributions and generating quality employment in the region, while at the same time contributing to broadening the national industrial and technological base of defence.
In order to launch the Aragonese Hub, President Azcón travelled to Madrid to present the key points of the project to the Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles. He did so accompanied by the mayoress of Zaragoza, Natalia Chueca; the government delegate in Aragon, Fernando Beltrán; and the president of the Aerospace and Defence Cluster of Aragon (AERA), Alejandro Ibrahim, with the intention of obtaining the active involvement of the department and the general directorates of Armament and Material and the recently established Strategy and Innovation of the Defence Industry.
The Hub has been in the gestation process for around two years, has nine working groups set up and has had a Technical Committee since February. The step taken now in Madrid by the authorities of Aragon aims to ‘create a public-private defence ecosystem, which offers opportunities for the industrial component, but also for the logistics and training branches, while promoting the emergence of research groups and start-ups focused on innovating and developing dual-use technologies,’ explain sources involved in the project.
At the meeting held on 11 December at the headquarters of the Ministry of Defence at Paseo de la Castellana 109, President Jorge Azcón stressed to Margarita Robles, her Secretary of State, Amparo Valcarce, and his direct collaborators, that the main purpose of the Hub is to ‘increase the weight of the defence industry in Aragon’. Both parties have agreed on a work plan for the coming weeks.
Creating an ecosystem around the defence industry
Its main location is in Zaragoza, the region's capital, where ‘different possibilities are being studied with a view to setting up an industrial estate specialising in defence’. It is not ruled out that the Hub could have ‘ramifications and other campuses in different areas,’ say executives linked to the work, ‘with the idea of constituting a new defence industrial corridor or forming a relevant part of the so-called northern corridor that already exists’.
In essence, the idea is to take advantage of the vast wasteland that surrounds Zaragoza and nearby towns, as well as the talent generated by its numerous faculties, university technical schools and research centres, the strength of entrepreneurs in new technologies, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and the operation of data management centres. For the mayoress of Zaragoza, Natalia Chueca, it is an ‘opportunity for social, scientific and economic growth for the city’.
Its current authorities have noted that the region hosts a notable volume of military infrastructures, for example, the largest manoeuvres and shooting range in Spain and a large air base, but also important tactical and logistical units and Army teaching centres. All this means that ‘there are 11,000 military personnel living in our territory,’ says Jorge Azcón, ‘which makes us the third Autonomous Community with the largest presence of military personnel, after Madrid and Andalusia’.
In addition, it is a region located in the northern half of Spain, bordering the central area of the Pyrenees, where motorways and air routes have been opened up to open it up to the rest of Europe. In particular with France and its important aerospace and defence industrial fabric, which is concentrated in and around the city of Toulouse, capital of the department of Haute-Garonne, 400 kilometres from Zaragoza, where more than 700 companies supplying the French Ministry of Defence are grouped together.
However, all this has not been complemented by an equivalent military and dual-product industrial sector, with the exception of major companies based in Saragossa, such as Instalaza and Arpa. It is a situation that President Azcón describes as ‘rickety’ and which he is willing to overcome, coinciding with the reinforcement of the European defence industrial and technological base that Brussels is calling for and that the Spanish Ministry of Defence supports, in line with the increase in investment in weapons systems planned for the coming years.
Large technological multinationals are already betting on Zaragoza
At the LiberDefensa Forum held at the beginning of December at the Spanish Engineering Institute in Madrid, President Azcón made a speech in which he made it clear that ‘I want defence companies to come to Aragon, because in my Autonomous Community the complexes that still exist in certain parts of Spain when we talk about armies and defence have come to an end’. And to leave no doubt, he stressed that in Aragon ‘we are ready to count on the military industry and those who are willing to invest, if they ask me for my number, I will give it to them’.
At the LiberDefensa Forum organised by Libertad Digital, Jorge Azcón highlighted Zaragoza's privileged geographical position. As an example, he brought to light the great commitment of Inditex, the great Spanish multinational textile fashion company, which has doubled its commitment to Aragon. Amancio Ortega's company has five large logistics distribution centres in Europe for its Zara brand, one of them in Zaragoza, and is already immersed in building a second 286,000 m² macro plant in the capital of the Ebro - the equivalent of 39 football pitches - which is due to open next summer.
The facilities and geographical potential offered by Zaragoza have also been valued by the Chinese electric car battery company CATL in cooperation with Stellantis, the large industrial corporation resulting from the merger in 2021 of the PSA Group - Citroën, DS, Opel, Peugeot and Vauxhall - with Fiat-Chrysler, owner of the Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maseratti and RAM Trucks brands.
Both industries are going to make a multi-million dollar investment to build a mega LFP (lithium-ferro-phosphate) battery factory in the town of Figueruelas, some 30 kilometres from Zaragoza, where Opel's large plant in Spain is located. A similar case is that of Amazon Web Services (AWS), which has decided to return to Aragon and expand the capacities of the three data centres it has in the region.
The Minister Margarita Robles has made a commitment to the President, Jorge Azcón, to travel to Zaragoza in February to jointly present the project, after assessing in detail the benefits offered by the Hub for the benefit of the industrial and technological base of Defence. Its presentation to society on an international scale is scheduled for mid-May, on the occasion of the fourth edition of the International Defence and Security Fair of Spain, FEINDEF 2025, where the Defence Industrial and Logistics Hub of Aragon will have a pavilion to showcase its potential.