In just a few weeks, the Spanish government has become a key player in shaping the European missile business, allowing one long-running project to advance from development to production with a second expected to follow shortly. The moves are part of a broader trend of closer defense industrial integration between Spain and Germany and France. The coupling was boosted further when BADS' Spanish arm, CASA, recently took a 5% stake in Eurocopter, transforming the Franco-German operation into a trinational entity. In the missile arena, the Spanish align- ment came with an agreement to buy the multination-ally developed IRIS-T short-range air-to-air missile, allowing the German procurement agency to give the production go-ahead. The BGT-led international consortium hopes foreign sales and a ground-launched version could expand production beyond the approximately 4,000 missiles planned.
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