“It will concentrate the bulk of the additional investment required to comply with our European partners. And it will channel it through public-private collaboration programmes to create a new technological and industrial leap in Spain,” he said in a speech to the Spanish parliament in Madrid, without giving further details.

The Prime Minister also reiterated that Spain would increase defence spending to 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as it has committed to do within NATO (the defence alliance of European and North American countries), leaving details of how it intends to achieve this goal for the coming weeks, once the new European funding mechanisms for this area are known.

Spain is the NATO country that is furthest from achieving the 2% by 2029 target: according to the organisation’s figures, it invested 1.2% of its GDP in defence in 2023.

Pedro Sánchez, in parliament, defended the increase in defence spending at a time when he leads a coalition government divided on this issue.