2023-09-08 13:28:12
The acting Minister of Defense, Daisy Roblesindicated this Friday that this ministerial department will study “very rigorously” the entry of the Saudi operator STC into Telefónica for “affecting a strategic sector that is defense.”
“The priority for us is that the national defense are always absolutely protected,” he said.
“Defense is essential and fundamental, and precisely the regulations that Spain has wanted to be very strict when there is foreign investments that can accept defense and security,” Robles said in statements to the press after holding a video conference with Navy ships.
Robles explained that “still no request has been formally submitted” in the Ministry of Defense to study the acquisition by the Saudi STC of a 9.9% stake in Telefónica, for a total amount of 2.1 billion euros.
“Evidently, we are going to study it very rigorously, with a lot of attention,” he said before emphasizing that “authorization has not yet been granted” by Defense to study this acquisition. “The moment it comes in, we will analyze it with all rigor,” she noted.
The minister has assured that she is not aware that Saudi Arabia has retained the order from the Spanish company Navantia for the construction of five corvettes worth 2,000 million euros, according to what the newspaper El Mundo published this Friday.
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“I don’t know nor do I think it has absolutely anything to do with that (the emergence of the Saudi group into Telefónica), responded Robles, who asked Navantia.
In any case, he has made it clear that “the Spanish Government would never accept any type of exchange in that sense.”
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