Torres made statements at the Fórum Europa-Tribuna Euskadi forum in Bilbao on Wednesday morning. At the end of the main conference, several questions were addressed to the Vice-President of the PSE, one of them related to the armaments industry. The Cedarras group said that a lot of money will be invested in the “security and defense industry” in Europe in the coming years and called for taking advantage of this “excellent opportunity”. He made the call at an event held on January 15, with Torres himself among the guests. “Do you defend the need to take advantage of this opportunity and protect companies in the defense sector?” they ask. The Vice-President responded positively.

According to the Minister of Economy, Labor and Employment, “it is clear” that the military industry “will have a very powerful development in the coming years” for two reasons: EU policies, and “news we’re getting to know.”

According to the president, we are “lucky” because the Basque industry, “in engineering and manufacturing”, does “a lot of work” for the armaments industry. New products and markets will open up, and he calls for taking advantage of this “opportunity” because it will bring benefits not only to the “leaders” of the arms industry, but also to their subcontractors. He points out that the armory industry is a “very important” sector of the Basque economy, with a “large part” of industrial technology focused on the armory industry.

It's not ideological

To promote the arms industry “we must not be afraid, quite the opposite,” said Torres, who assured the government’s “support” for the sector “for the benefit of the whole country.”

Both the promotion of the arms industry and its manifestations have placed the members of the PSE beyond political or ideological values: “Another issue is the ideological positions that each of us can have in this field,” he says towards the end of the answer.

The Cedars, the lobby for the armory?

The anti-militarist group Vitoria-Gasteiz has studied the connection of the sixteen people who make up the group Cedarios with the arms industry in the study published by LARA. Ten of Hamas have “at least” some connection to companies and technology centers dedicated to military production. “It seems obvious what interest Zedarria has in proposing the impetus of the military industry. This is what lobbyists in this area do,” concludes the anti-militarist group.