- She announces that before the summer the new partnership agreements will be tendered, which will make it possible to select the Xunta’s strategic and technological partners in the Strategic Initiative for Security, Defence and Aerospace up to 2030
- She states that the Strategic Initiative promoted by the Galician Government constitutes “a call to all public administrations, other regions and companies to collaborate and co-invest in creating the European Defence Industrial Base that Europe needs”
Oviedo, 17 March 2026
The Director-General for Industrial Strategy and Business Land, Margarita Ardao, highlighted today in Oviedo “the unprecedented support that the Galician Government is providing for investments in security and defence” under the Strategic Initiative for Security, Defence and Aerospace, and invited companies to look to Galicia and share their investment and growth plans.
Ardao announced that the Xunta de Galicia will be able to tender the partnership agreements before the summer to select the companies that will be strategic and technological partners of the Galician Government in the coming years. “This opportunity alone – she pointed out – should make any company in the security, defence and aerospace sectors look to Galicia”.
She indicated that the Xunta, through Strategic Dialogue with the sector, is analysing 79 strategic projects while defining the appropriate instruments for them. “It is an open process, we want more companies and more projects,” she said.
The Director-General took part in the third Meeting of the National Defence Industry Ecosystem, organised by Indra, which brought together more than 300 companies and entities, mainly from northern and north-western Spain, at the former Arms Factory of La Vega in Oviedo, with the aim of strengthening the supply chain and accelerating the incorporation of companies into the industrial plans associated with the Special Modernisation Programmes (PEMs).
The Director-General took part in a dialogue roundtable with representatives of the Industry Departments of the Junta de Castilla y León and the Principality of Asturias, regions that constitute important foci of economic development for the company, where she highlighted the key role of regions as co-drivers of a Security and Defence Industrial Base and pointed to Galicia’s leadership in this field, stating that the Strategic Initiative for Security, Defence and Aerospace constitutes “a call to all public administrations, other regions and companies to collaborate and co-invest in creating this Industrial Base that Europe needs”.
In her speech, she also emphasised that the Galician Government has a “consolidated and ongoing” commitment to these sectors through public-private collaboration. “Galicia will be a key player in this new European Defence Industrial Base that Europe so badly needs. It is the companies that drive that growth and at the Xunta we are clear that we must help them to achieve it,” she said.
She also recalled that the Xunta has in place a programme to support SMEs in obtaining the certifications necessary to work in the defence and security sector, with a total budget of 1.5 million euros; as well as an Executive Programme in Defence Industry in Galicia, an initiative co-financed by the Xunta and the Escuela de Organización Industrial (EOI) Foundation in collaboration with TEDAE.
