The Government says Palantir is a risk to national security. NATO, of which Spain is a member, has put it in charge of its own

Moncloa has begun to ask public companies not to sign new contracts with Palantir, according to Agustín Marco has advanced in The Confidential. The order is not official nor is it in writing, but an agreement has already been reached with the Civil Guard and another with Navantia.

The panoramic. Spain joins France, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands in distrust towards the company of Peter Thiel and Alex Karp. The unofficial argument is the usual one: not to risk sensitive information in the hands of an American company with close ties to the Trump White House.

• The veto affects Telefónica, Indra, Correos and Navantia, all of them under the umbrella of SEPI.
• There is no statement, no press conference, no official note. They are indications transferred internally to boards of directors.

In detail. The contract that really matters still stands. Defense signed with Palantir in 2023 a 16.5 million euro agreement for the Armed Forces Intelligence Center, and that contract expires in November of this year.

According to The Confidentialthe chiefs of the General Staff have pressured Margarita Robles to renew it because there is no comparable alternative. Either Palantir or nobody. The decision remains unmade.

The contrast. While Moncloa slides the veto inside, NATO announced this week that Palantir’s Maven Smart System becomes its operating system for military data management.

Spain is a partner of the Alliance and has had to approve this decision, like all allies. So he voted yes in Brussels but has chosen the opposite direction behind closed doors.

Why is it important. The veto does not touch the only thing that really counts: the Defense contract. Everything else (the Civil Guard and Navantia) were negotiations in progress, but not consolidated relationships. Cutting them costs little.

Touching the CIFAS contract (Intelligence Center of the Armed Forces), on the other hand, would require replacing a tool that, according to sources in the military sector itself, has no rival in the market. Again: either Palantir or nobody.

Yes, but. The gesture has a clear recipient: the US government. Pedro Sánchez has not received the US ambassador in Madrid, Benjamín León Jr., for months and Its Executive has invested 115 million euros in Openchip and another 5,000 million in a chip gigafactory as a commitment to European technological sovereignty.

The Palantir veto fits that narrative. What doesn’t fit so well is that this same story coexists with a Defense contract that no one dares to cancel.

And now what. The end of the current contract in November will test whether this was signaling or conviction:

• If the CIFAS contract is renewed without making much noise, the veto will have been a diplomatic gesture.
• If it is dropped without an equivalent replacement, Spain will be left without the tool its own military considers irreplaceable.

The middle way, replacing it with European or national technology, does not yet exist.

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Featured image | Palantir, Wikimedia Commons