Covid-19 and the Spanish Defence Technological and Industrial Base: Impact and Policy Responses

Spain’s industrial policy does not consider the defence industry to be strategic, except for the aerospace sector. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) manages the relationship with the Defence Technological and Industrial Base (DTIB) and, consequently, it will be responsible for the management of the response measures to the challenges posed by COVID-19. The arms industry has not yet recovered from the serious damages of the 2008 economic crisis and the pandemic has come at the worst time, when the DTIB was about to take advantage of the opportunities created by the European cooperation programmes and the new investment cycle in Spain. In the short term, the lockdown has affected the industrial and research activities to a limited extent, but in the longer term, its impact threatens to jeopardise the expected recovery and aggravate the structural problems affecting the Spanish DTIB…