The Government has approved this Monday two loans for Airbus for an amount of 2,137 million euros. The company specialized in military technology, with several work centers in Spain, receives this funding from the Ministry of Industry for the Tigre MK III helicopter and Euromale RPAS drone programs, with the aim of financing national participation in these European programs between 2022 and 2028.
The two credits are divided between the 1,429 million euros that the drone program will receive and the 707 million for the helicopter project, according to the Executive after the council of ministers.
The Euromale RPAS drone is a high-range, medium-altitude system in which Germany, France, Italy and Spain participate to provide their armed forces with this type of remotely manned device that can even carry weapons. The goal is for the UAVs to enter service from 2028. The multi-year loan will be signed with Airbus Defense and Space, the company's military arm.
The workload of the drone project is focused on the Airbus factories in Getafe, Seville and Cádiz. It is estimated that the impact on employment derived from the Euromale RPAS program supposes an average of 3,000 jobs per year during the next 15 years, between direct, indirect and induced.
The Tiger MK III helicopter program, for its part, is a bilateral program between Spain and France to modernize their respective fleets of Tiger helicopters, with the purpose of extending their useful life from 20 to 40 years and increasing their capacities. The modernization consists of improving and renewing the systems and subsystems, avionics architecture, operating equipment and weapon capabilities of the current fleet of Tiger helicopters.
The multi-year loan will be signed with Airbus Helicopters Spain, which is the entity through which the Spanish participation in the program will be channeled. The loan will be used to partially cover the expenses and investments necessary to carry out the work that must be carried out for the modernization to a new common standard of the fleets of 42 helicopters from France and 18 helicopters from Spain in the period 2022-2028.
For Airbus Helicopters Spain, this project ensures its workload in the Getafe and Albacete factories, significantly increasing its workforce during the term of the program.
Airbus is the military company that will receive the greatest budget burden from the State during 2023. This is stated in the general budgets in parliamentary processing. Nearly 2,400 million euros will go to projects next year in which the multinational participates.
Among the military programs that will be promoted, four stand out above the rest: the Eurofighter, which will receive a boost of 620 million, the NH 90 helicopter, with a budget of 445 million, and the MRTT and A/400M, with an investment of 270 million in each of them. The Ministry of Finance, in collaboration with Defense, also plans to sign some future arms contracts, such as the C-295 plane or other drones.
