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If a manufacturer requests public funding by claiming to be strategic, I would ask them to explain what would happen if their factory closed tomorrow. Who would be left without their products, where could they buy them, and how long would it take to get them? Once we have those answers, we could start talking about money.
I think this is a more useful criterion than the one usually used in industrial debates. Nowadays, the word “strategic” is used to justify almost any activity. But a budget forces you to choose. When the Government uses resources to maintain one type of production, it stops using them elsewhere. It should be able to say why.
To clarify that choice, I propose an exercise. Let us imagine three months with serious problems in receiving certain foreign supplies. It could be an export restriction or a key supplier shutting down. The timeframe is arbitrary, but it helps to see what happens when stocks run out and finding a replacement takes longer than expected.
Spain would need to find out what would fail first: Counting factories does not answer that question. Imagine a pharmaceutical plant here, with its machinery and staff, needing to import the active ingredient for a medicine. While that supply arrives, everything runs smoothly. If it is cut off and there is no alternative, the facility remains, but production stops. Our dependency was inside the factory, even though the accounts only showed an investment in Spain.
In pharmaceuticals, it is important to focus on well-known, widely used medicines. Some have almost no alternatives and, if they are missing, could cause a serious healthcare problem. The product’s price does not reflect what it means to go without it.
AEMPS already identifies strategic medicines based on their necessity in medical care and the risk of shortages. This work provides a basis for analysing what the industry depends on: the plants making the active ingredient, the supplies they use, and whether they can source them elsewhere.
Reaching that point is crucial. A buyer might think they are covered because they work with three different companies. If those companies all buy from the same plant, the risk remains in the same place. The names on the invoices change, but the problem starts at the same spot.
In agriculture, a relationship often goes unnoticed. To make nitrogen fertilisers, natural gas is used both as a raw material and as an energy source. If the energy market changes, farmers’ costs can rise. The European Commission mentions this dependency in its analysis of fertilisers.
That is why, if we support Spanish food production, we also need to talk about the industries that support it. A farmer may have land, experience, and customers, but if the supplies needed arrive late or are so expensive that they threaten the campaign, problems will arise. Knowing where these weak points are helps decide where to intervene.
I would add water, a sector in Spain that needs specific industrial attention. When people talk about its distribution, they often forget the equipment that makes its use possible. A desalination or purification plant needs maintenance for years. To preserve that capacity, you must care for both its parts and the people who know how to operate it.
Electricity also presents this issue. Before trusting in infrastructure, I want to know how long it takes to replace the hardest-to-source equipment. Planning a quick repair helps little if the part arrives months later. Storing spare parts costs money; not having them also costs, but that expense only appears when a breakdown occurs.
In defence, the purchase contract must make clear how the equipment will be maintained over its useful life. Ammunition and repairs are part of the acquired capability. If these issues are postponed, they can create an expensive and difficult dependency.
My proposal carries a clear risk: that each sector will use its dependencies to ask for protection. To avoid this, we need to define what we will fund and what we get in return.
A reserve is useful if the product can be stored and replaced without high cost. If not, it is best to have genuinely independent suppliers. To maintain productive capacity with public support, we need justification. It must be shown that losing that capacity would leave us with a risk that cannot be properly covered otherwise.
The beneficiary business must accept verifiable commitments. For example, ensuring a production volume or maintaining the ability to increase it within a set period. The Administration must review facilities, supplies, and deadlines. It should also remove support if there is no longer a reason to maintain it.
The taxpayer has the right to know what guarantee was received for their money. A declaration of good intentions is not enough, even if presented alongside a report on strategic autonomy.
European cooperation helps to share this work. Spain does not need to have all its partners’ industrial capacities, but it must know which ones remain in other countries’ hands and under what conditions they can be used in an emergency. To negotiate these agreements, we need to have done our own analysis beforehand.
I would start by asking for a map of critical dependencies, made together with businesses. It would show which supplies would cause serious problems if interrupted and estimate how long we would need to replace them. Some of the information must be confidential. Parliament will need to understand the spending and results.
The three-month exercise can help the industrial debate move toward verifiable answers. At the end, we should be able to identify a specific dependency, say how long we could bear it, what solution we chose, and how much it costs. If the next industrial plan achieves this, it will have made useful progress, even if it covers fewer sectors and allows for fewer announcements of funding.