The Spanish government has canceled a contract of almost 700 million euros for Israeli design rocket launches, following the weapons contracts with Israel confirmed last week, according to official documents consulted on Monday by AFP.
This contract, awarded to a consortium formed by Spanish companies, scheduled for the acquisition of 12 copies of the High Mobility Rocket launcher (SIAM), developed from the PUS system of the Israeli group Elbit Systems, according to the “military balance” of the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS).
The cancellation of this contract, mentioned by the local press and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, was formalized on the official Spanish platform that identifies public contracts in a document dated September 9, said an AFP journalist.
Point weapons contracts with Israel
The previous day, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez had announced new measures aimed at “ending the genocide in Gaza”, which provided in particular to “legally consolidate” the embargo of arms contracts with Israel, already applied de facto by the country.
On September 9, the cancellation of another contract, in particular that provides for the acquisition of 168 anti -tank missile launches, which would be manufactured in Spain under the license of an Israeli company, was also formalized on this same platform, AFP said. It amounted to 287.5 million euros, and its cancellation had already been announced in the press last June.
According to Daily La Vanguardia, the Spanish government is currently launched in a vast plan so that reflection does not go without weapons, but also in Israeli technologies in its armed forces. Contacted by AFP, the Spanish Ministry of Defense did not react immediately.
One of the most critical European voices
The Head of the Spanish Government is one of the most critical European votes for his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and attacks against Gaza in response to those led by Hamas in the Israeli territory on October 7, 2023.
The relations between the two countries have been extremely tense for several months. Israel has no more ambassador to Spain since the recognition of the state of Palestine by the Pedro Sánchez Executive in 2024, and Madrid also reminded its ambassador to Israel last week, after the living exchanges between the two countries that followed the announcement of the new measures defended by the Spanish government.
The Spanish Ministry of Interior had already decided in April to terminate a contract of purchasing of ammunition to an Israeli company, partly under the pressure of the training of the Almar left, government partner of the Socialists.
The Beyond Center, a Barcelona -based Research Institute specialized in Security and Defense, had estimated in April that Madrid had granted, since the beginning of the War in Gaza, 46 contracts worth 1,044 billion dollars to Israeli companies, according to data collected in the public tender platform.
Source: BFM TV
