On Thursday, November 6th, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium held a new luncheon-debate as part of its ‘Business Circle’ forum, at which Belgian Defence Minister and in charge of Foreign Trade, Theo Francken, spoke on ‘National and European defence investment programmes of the legislature’.

After the welcome cocktail, the president of the Chamber, Pablo López-Álvarez, opened the lunch by thanking the minister for his participation in the debate. The minister had just finished an emergency meeting of the Belgian Security Council due to the presence this week of drones of unknown origin at the airports of Brussels and Liège.

Setting the scene for the debate, López Álvarez recalled that ‘Spain is Belgium’s seventh largest trading partner,’ also mentioning that Spanish companies in the defence sector are collaborating with the Belgian business community on projects that are critical for the country.

José Vicente de los Mozos, CEO of Indra, sponsor company of the event, then took the floor and expressed the company’s willingness to continue supporting the Belgian defence industry. ‘In Europe, we must work together, and the best way to do this is by promoting technology transfer between EU countries,’ he said.

Anti-drone investments

Minister Francken began his presentation by addressing the ethical and security dilemma posed by drones, which has been highlighted by the crisis of recent weeks. While this technology represents “an undeniable innovation”, its introduction into the field of defence in recent years has given rise to “a new way of war”. The management of drones is one of the challenges that national governments must now address.

To strengthen the country’s security, Francken explained that Belgium is preparing for an urgent investment of €50 million in anti-drone technologies “as soon as possible” and defended the need to forge strong partnerships with the defence industry, an industry in constant and increasingly rapid evolution.

However, the minister asserted that “Europe needs to catch up” when it comes to rearming, and that it needs to once again become an attractive destination for European defence professionals who currently hold highly specialised roles in non-European companies.

With this objective in mind, Francken defended the need to promote synergies between European countries with initiatives such as the first Belgian German Defence Industry Days, an event designed to enable companies in the sector from both countries to get to know each other and generate new opportunities for collaboration: “We need to share knowledge more than ever.”

In this regard, the minister said that he would like to organise similar conferences with the Baltic countries and also with Spain, announcing that he will contact Minister Margarita Robles to discuss the possibility of organising a Belgian Spanish Defence Industry Days.