If the State budgets for next year obtain the necessary support to be approved and the Defense item is not modified downwards, companies such as Navantia their activity will be boosted in 2023. Spain expects to reach 1.2% of GDP in military spending in the coming year with the 25.8% increase in the allocation allocated to Defense policy in the bill sent to the Congress last week. It will undoubtedly be a breath of fresh air for public shipyards, which have been in the red for 14 years in a row, which in 2021 were 82.4 million.
The section that rises the most is that of the so-called special modernization programswhich increase by 72% compared to what was budgeted in 2022. Defense defends that it is “a stimulus” for the military industry and job creation.
An expenditure of 4,902 million is expected for these programs, which Defense assures will contribute to creating 22,667 jobs directly or indirectly. Among the projects contemplated for next year is the EF-2000 program in Getafe, in which the accounts contemplate an endowment of 619 million compared to a budget forecast executed this year of 466 million.
The new frigates F-100 and F-110
The A-400M program will also have more resources than expected to be executed in 2022, and it is crucial because it has made it possible to have a final assembly line in Seville. Where, without a doubt, the intervention of Navantia will be decisive will be in the programs for the F-100 Frigate and the F-110 type, whose endowments increase notably. In the first case, it goes from 81.6 million euros this year to 104 million for the next and in the case of the F-110 (the first frigate began to be built in April, at the Navantia shipyard in El Ferrol) it is planned to spend 444 million euros compared to 121.7 million this year (three times more). Its start-up is scheduled to take place in Ferrol.
For its part, the BAM-IS Maritime Rescue Ship program will also see its budget increased from 58 to almost 70 million and is expected to be carried out in Cádiz. The programs associated with the 8×8 Wheeled Combat Vehicle, divided between Asturias, Seville, Guipúzcoa and Madrid, will have 189 million compared to 62.9 million this year.
New investments are also planned for the MPA Maritime Patrol Plane, those carried out by hydrographic ships or the initiative for the VIGMA Maritime Surveillance Plane, among others.
