Business As Usual: Spain’s Ongoing Weapons Trade with Israel

Orinoco Tribune, July 15, 2024 — 

Madrid has purchased Israeli weapons worth 1.03 million euros since October 7. It also continues to award contracts to Israeli companies in the defense sector. Spain has exported the the fifth most weapons to Israel of any EU country since October, according to a report from the Delàs Center.

The arms trade between Spain and Israel has hardly changed since the Israeli army launched a large-scale destructive operation in Gaza in the autumn of 2023, causing tens of thousands of deaths, the vast majority of them civilians. Despite the fact that international institutions have identified Israel’s atrocities in Gaza as a genocide, and Spain is legally obligated to cease weapons trade authorizations to countries committing genocide, business is continuing as usual.

According to a report published by the Barcelona-based Delàs Centre for Peace Studies, the value of public contracts awarded to purchase weapons from Israeli companies in the defense and security sector or their subsidiaries in Spain has amounted to €1.03 million since October 7, 2023. Spain also exported €1.3 million of weapons to Israel between January 2022 and June 2023 (out of a total export of €5.8 million to 109 countries.)

“Despite the extreme gravity of Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip, military relations between Spain and Israel have not been substantially altered,” the authors of the report note.

Military collaboration between the two countries is not limited to the business of exporting and importing defensive material. It also takes place in areas such as: the awarding of contracts to Israeli companies for products and services for the Armed Forces or security forces in Spain; business collaboration between Spanish and Israeli companies to access third markets; bilateral collaboration in matters of intelligence and security, and in a broader framework of the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military cooperation.

The collaboration “between universities, companies and institutions in research and training projects, within the framework of the EU or within the institutional framework, in both countries or in third countries” is also highlighted in the report. This fact was denounced in May in Spain in the heat of student protests in the main universities of the country, to the point that the Governing Council of Universities of Spain agreed to review the collaboration agreements.

Exports continue

Spanish authorities say they have not granted any new licenses for the export of military equipment to Israel after October 7, 2023. But exports have continued.

“In November 2023, the company Nammo Palencia exported 987,000 euros worth of ammunition from Spain to Israel,” the report states.

Nammo Palencia is a subsidiary of the Norwegian-Finnish multinational Nammo and the ammunition was destined for Elbit Systems, one of the main suppliers to the Israeli Army. A month later, in December, “defense material corresponding to categories 93 (weapons and ammunition) and 8710 (armored combat vehicles and vehicles, whether or not armed; parts)” was also exported to Israel, with the alleged purpose of being re-exported to the Philippines.

“It therefore appears that export authorizations granted before 7 October have not been revoked. The government has thus given priority to the legal security of arms companies over the guarantee of human rights,” write the authors of the report, who refer to Article 6.3 of the Arms Trade Treaty, according to which authorizations for arms exports to countries that commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes must “at least be suspended.”

“If in a situation like Gaza, the government does not apply the legislation to stop arms trade with Israel, it is worth asking what purpose it serves. So far, it has only served to legitimize the policy of promoting arms exports and to provide legal security to companies,” explains Eduardo Melero, one of the authors of the report.

Furthermore, it is not known exactly which weapons Spain has exported to Israel since October 7, the Delàs Centre acknowledges. The only official export report available, prepared by Spain’s State Secretariat for Trade, only includes data for the first half of 2023 and the EU’s analogous 2023 document will not be ready until December. In addition, only some of the categories used are clearly identified, such as 93 and 8710.

According to data from the DataComex website belonging to the State Secretariat for Trade, between October 7 and March, Spain was the fifth-largest exporter in the EU of Category 93 material (arms and ammunition) to Israel, all for a value of 1.1 billion euros. The four countries exporting more than Spain are Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia and Italy.

Authorizations are not denied

In 2022, the Inter-Ministerial Board for Defense and Dual-Use Material granted 2,048 export licenses for defense material and denied only one (a sale to Pakistan of 670 sporting pistols and their magazines.) In the first half of 2023, 927 licenses were approved and, again, only one was vetoed (the export to Serbia of 32 tonnes of trinitrotoluene.)

According to the specialists at the Delàs Centre, such a low number of denials can only be interpreted as a “lack of political will” to rigorously apply Law 53/2007 on the control of foreign trade in defense and dual-use material, and the criteria established in the EU Common Position 2008/944/CFSP. “National and European legislation is being underused,” they say.

It is worth highlighting the fact that Spain has not denied export licenses for military material to destinations that other EU countries have vetoed. For example, to Saudi Arabia while it was waging war on Yemen. Thus, the situation around export licenses to Israel is not new either.

Uninterrupted imports

In fact, the Spanish government has never established a formal arms embargo on Israel, a measure requested by the United Nations rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese. Nor have imports of Israeli defensive material to Spain been suspended, as acknowledged in February by the Secretary of State for Trade, an organization that has not yet produced an official annual report on these imports.

“A large part of the Israeli patent protection material is manufactured in Spain, by subsidiaries of Israeli companies or by other companies that produce them through a technology transfer agreement with Israeli companies,” the Delàs Center points out in this regard.

The awarding of contracts to the main Israeli military companies, such as the private company Elbit Systems and the public Rafael Advanced Systems LTD (PAP Tecnos is its subsidiary in Spain), is also ongoing. Both “are the most profitable for military operations in the Gaza Strip, where they have frequently tested and used the same products that they offer to the Spanish Armed Forces,” the study notes.

Among the material that Israel provides to Spain through contracts signed with these companies or their Spanish subsidiaries, the Silam rocket launcher system (in consortium with Elbit) and the Spike missiles (with PAP Tecnos) stand out. The advertising that accompanies this weaponry to support its guarantee is always the same: “Combat tested.” In other words, they have been used against the Palestinians.

Israeli weapons systems companies “are the main military companies promoting and facilitating the occupation of the Palestinian territories,” the Delàs Centre notes. For this reason, they conclude, Israeli arms purchases “encourage the viability of the country’s defense industry and also favor the militarization and military occupation of Palestine.”