Tess Defense, the consortium that was awarded in 2020 the manufacture of 348 armored vehicles VCR 8×8 Dragon for 2.4 billion euros, remains without a delivery date after almost two years of delay. Integrated by Indra, Escribano, Santa Barbara and Sapa, the group has shown today in Seville the first units in an act to which Minister Margarita Robles was going to go.
Although Tess has shown the armored, already finished, to the Secretary of State for Defense, María Amparo Valcarce, the Army will have to continue waiting to be able to use the 8×8. Sources close to the consortium insist that “it is not known when delivery” and in defense the discomfort is capital, although the ministry declines to make any official comments.
6 million sanction
All this taking into account that the Ministry, which has already imposed a fine of Tess Defense of 6 million euros for the breach of the agreed deadlines, has been claiming the immediate delivery of the first units for months. The objective of the government is to increase the safety and protection of soldiers and officers in their different missions, in addition to providing better capabilities to operate in scenarios of all kinds of intensity. In that direction the 8×8 program affects, now struck by a geostrategic scenario that requires increasing investment in defense to 2% of GDP in 2029, with the consequent process of modernization and improvement of equipment.
The delivery of the VCR 8×8 is among the pending subjects of the department led by Minister Robles, when considered one of the Defense Programs and the most ambition of the Army of Earth, together with the orders to Navantia of the frigates F -110 and the S-80 submarines, the first one, the S-81 Isaac Peral, delivered to Navy at the end of November 2023.
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