The Government wants to reform the National Security Law of 2015 to better adapt it to crisis situations similar to the current pandemic and prevent supply problems such as those that occurred at the beginning of the health emergency with respirators or masks. The main novelty that they plan to include in the standard is the creation of a list of strategic products for whose production, in case of shortage, may temporarily requisition private sector factories, according The newspaper El País advances.
Among those strategic assets the Executive includes semiconductors, high-tech machinery, various electronic components, communication technologies, aeronautics, essential chemistry and medical equipment, among others, without going into more details.
The Government considers that these products may be necessary in future crises to maintain essential services, supplies of essential goods and preserve the rights and freedoms of citizens.
The intention of the Executive in creating this list is, on the one hand, to identify and specify those critical products and, on the other, analyze the national production capacities of all of them and the possibilities of rapidly mobilizing Spanish industry to face high and unexpected demand in a crisis situation. The objective pursued with all this is to ensure the capacity for national self-sufficiency of essential goods at times when foreign supply is not guaranteed.
Cybersecurity crises, including
The preliminary project to which El País has had access indicates that sectors of interest to national security in which these searches may be applied In the event of a crisis, they are cybersecurity, economic and financial security, maritime, airspace and outer space, the energy sector, public health, the environment and the safeguarding of the industrial base that provides essential goods.
The requisitions would begin to be applied at the moment in which the Prime Minister declares a situation of interest to national security. It is not clear whether the affected industries would have to fully dedicate their production capacity to the Executive’s requirements or could partially continue with their activity while rendering mandatory service to the State.
If it is specified that this requisition will have to be included in the decree in which the national emergency is declared, such asl who regulated the state of alarm for the health crisis, It must be valid for a limited time and linked to the time necessary to face the crisis and it states that the State will have to compensate those who suffer damage to their property.
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