The Ministry of Defense has initiated a process of Revocation to do without the Israeli technological license of the company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems for the manufacture of the misiles Spike LR2which occur in Spain through the Spanish subsidiary of that company, Pap Tecnos. The contract, however, is not paralyzed and The program continues.
Said program was going to walk right now, even though The contract was closed at the end of 2023. From the department directed by Margarita Robles, they argue that the dependence on the technological part is such that cannot be interruptedbut they are Looking for alternatives. The Government wants to disconnect as much as possible to the Spanish subsidiary and it is to which they have asked to seek alternatives for the technological part.
From defense, they emphasize that this process begins and is part of the technological disconnection program that the Ministry has initiated and that last Friday the Secretary of State for Defense announced, Amparo Valcarce, who advanced that the Executive works on “Disconnection plans” not to depend on Israel “In none of the ways.”
Likewise, and although he stressed that Spain has no “absolutely” any project for the sale of weapons with Israel, Valcarce admitted that “some programs have Technological dependencies from some Israel company “and that is why they were” drawing disconnection plans. “
The spike missiles was one of the not formalized contracts of acquisition of Israeli military material that the Center Delà denounced last April, in full controversy for the Interior contract to acquire Israeli ammunition. Defense sources then transferred a lasexta that the Spike program takes place by the Spanish company Pap technoalthough they recognized that its technological provider is the Israeli Rafael and argued that It was not substitutable.
Pap Tecnos is the Spanish subsidiary of that Israeli company. The contract awarded relating to the Spike missiles, according to EFE, the October 3, 2023days before the attacks of Hamas to which Israel has responded massacring more than 54,000 people In Gaza. At that time, Defense explained that the obsolescence of the systems forced them to replace them with more modern ones and that the Israeli company was the only technically trained to develop those fifth generation missiles.
The award contemplated the payment of some 285 million euros in five years to equip these missiles to Earth Army and the Marineswhich already operated with the previous version, the Spike LR missiles.
Also in October 2023, the ‘Spanish Defense Magazine‘detailed that the program contemplated buy 1,680 missiles and 168 shooting posts of the most advanced version of the system, Spike LR2. The companies in charge of their production, said, would be Pap Tecnos, Escribano, Expal, FMG, Technobit and the Israeli Rafael.
